AI model comparison

LongCat 2.0 vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B

Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.

LongCat 2.0 is a sparse mixture-of-experts language model from Meituan, with 48B active parameters out of 1.6T total.

Input / 1M
$0.30
Output / 1M
$1.20
Context
1.05M

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is an open-weight multimodal model from Alibaba Cloud with 35 billion total parameters and 3 billion active parameters per token.

Input / 1M
$0.15
Output / 1M
$1
Context
262K

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

qwen logo

Qwen3.6 35B A3B

1.5x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

meituan logo

LongCat 2.0

19.1 vs 18.2 on Artificial Analysis

Larger context window

meituan logo

LongCat 2.0

1.05M vs 262K tokens

Newer release

meituan logo

LongCat 2.0

Released July 20, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

meituan logoLongCat 2.019.1
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B18.2

Coding index

meituan logoLongCat 2.045.3
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B41.9

Agentic index

meituan logoLongCat 2.014
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B13.1

Pricing

LongCat 2.0 vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricmeituan logoLongCat 2.0qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.30$0.15
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$1.20$1
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.01$0.05
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

meituan logoLongCat 2.0$1.20
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$0.80

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

meituan logoLongCat 2.0$13.80$4.98 cached
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$8.50$5.50 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

meituan logoLongCat 2.0$47.40$3.30 cached
qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B$24.50$9.50 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricmeituan logoLongCat 2.0qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B
Context window1.05M tokens262K tokens
Max output262K tokens236K tokens
Input typesTextImage, Text, Video
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsNot availableNot available
Default reasoning effortNot availableNot available
Release dateJuly 20, 2026April 27, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricmeituan logoLongCat 2.0qwen logoQwen3.6 35B A3B
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsNot supportedSupported
JSON modeNot supportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Qwen3.6 35B A3B is 1.5x cheaper for a typical chat. LongCat 2.0 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (19.1 vs 18.2). LongCat 2.0 has the larger context window (1.05M vs 262K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is LongCat 2.0 or Qwen3.6 35B A3B cheaper?

Qwen3.6 35B A3B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens, while LongCat 2.0 costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens and $1.20 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, LongCat 2.0 or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?

LongCat 2.0 supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 262K for Qwen3.6 35B A3B.

Is LongCat 2.0 smarter than Qwen3.6 35B A3B?

On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, LongCat 2.0 scores 19.1 and Qwen3.6 35B A3B scores 18.2, putting LongCat 2.0 ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.

Can I use LongCat 2.0 and Qwen3.6 35B A3B at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see LongCat 2.0 and Qwen3.6 35B A3B answer side by side and keep the better response.

meituan logoqwen logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to LongCat 2.0 and Qwen3.6 35B A3B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.