Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Solar Mini 4
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba or Solar Mini 4 by Upstage? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Solar Mini 4 scores 12.9 points higher (24.1 vs 11.2) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($502 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Solar Mini 4 when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Solar Mini 4 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.2 | 24.1 | +115.2% Solar Mini 4 is 2.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $328.86 | $502.02 | +52.7% Solar Mini 4 is 52.7% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 43.21s | 25.33s | −41.4% Solar Mini 4 is 41.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.14 / $0.20 | $0.10 / $0.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text |
Solar Mini 4 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning): 115.2% more intelligence, 52.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 41.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Solar Mini 4 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Solar Mini 4Today'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/qwen3-5-9b/solar-mini4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-5-9b/solar-mini4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill