Llama 4 Scout vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Llama 4 Scout by Meta or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) scores 11.9 points higher (18.4 vs 6.5) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($941 vs $73.6; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 6.5, and Llama 4 Scout when 6.5 is enough.
| Metric | Llama 4 Scout | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.5 | 18.4 | +183.1% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 2.8× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $73.56 | $940.97 | +1179.2% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 13× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.47s | 65.32s | +909.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 909.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.18 / $0.66 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Llama 4 Scout: 183.1% more intelligence, 1179.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 909.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Llama 4 Scout is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Llama 4 ScoutQwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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