Llama 4 Scout vs Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Llama 4 Scout by Meta or Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) scores 14.9 points higher (21.4 vs 6.5) but costs 16× as much to run the benchmark ($1145 vs $73.6; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 6.5, and Llama 4 Scout when 6.5 is enough.
| Metric | Llama 4 Scout | Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.5 | 21.4 | +229.2% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 3.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $73.56 | $1,145.36 | +1457.0% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 16× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.15s | 111.39s | +2062.9% Qwen3.6 27B (Reasonin… is 2062.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.18 / $0.66 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) vs Llama 4 Scout: 229.2% more intelligence, 1457.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 2062.9% 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.
- Qwen3.6 27B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Llama 4 ScoutQwen3.6 27B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-scout/qwen3-6-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-scout/qwen3-6-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill