Qwen3.5-9B alternatives

Best Qwen3.5-9B alternatives

10 models that can stand in for Qwen3.5-9B, ranked by benchmark score, with what each one does better.

Qwen3.5-9B is scheduled to be retired on October 21, 2026. Consider Qwen3.8 27B instead.

Current Model

Qwen3.5-9B

Quick picks

The best alternative depends on what you need

Why people switch away from Qwen3.5-9B, and the model that fits each reason best.

Cheapest alternative

gpt-oss-20b

$0.09 per 1M output tokens vs $0.15

Smartest alternative

Gemma 4 31B

Intelligence score 14.7 vs 13.3

Largest context

Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite

1.05M tokens vs 262K

Ranked

Each model is scored against Qwen3.5-9B. Green means better, red means worse.

Qwen3.5-9B as the baseline, then the top alternatives scored against it
Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Context	Intelligence	Compare
Qwen3.5-9B Qwen	Input / 1M$0.10	Output / 1M$0.15	Context262K	Intelligence13.3	Reference model
1 Gemma 4 31B Google	Input / 1M$0.09-10%	Output / 1M$0.34+127%	Context262K	Intelligence14.7+11%	Compare
Why switch:Higher intelligence scoreNewer release
2 GPT-5 Nano OpenAI	Input / 1M$0.05-50%	Output / 1M$0.40+167%	Context400K+53%	Intelligence13-2%	Compare
Why switch:Larger 400K contextAccepts file
3 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning NVIDIA	Input / 1M$0.05-53%	Output / 1M$0.13-11%	Context262K	Intelligence12.9-3%	Compare
Why switch:1.1x cheaper outputNewer release
4 Mercury 2.5 Inception	Input / 1M$0.04-60%	Output / 1M$0.15	Context260K-1%	Intelligence12.3-8%	Compare
Why switch:Newer release
5 Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507 Qwen	Input / 1M$0.09-10%	Output / 1M$0.55+267%	Context262K	Intelligence12-10%	Compare
6 gpt-oss-120b OpenAI	Input / 1M$0.04-63%	Output / 1M$0.17+13%	Context131K-50%	Intelligence11.6-13%	Compare
7 Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Google	Input / 1M$0.10	Output / 1M$0.40+167%	Context1.05M+300%	Intelligence10.4-22%	Compare
Why switch:Larger 1.05M contextAccepts file and audio
8 gpt-oss-20b OpenAI	Input / 1M$0.02-82%	Output / 1M$0.09-40%	Context131K-50%	Intelligence10-25%	Compare
Why switch:1.7x cheaper output
9 Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct Qwen	Input / 1M$0.07-30%	Output / 1M$0.28+87%	Context262K	Intelligence9.6-28%	Compare
10 Qwen3 32B Qwen	Input / 1M$0.08-20%	Output / 1M$0.28+87%	Context131K-50%	Intelligence8.6-35%	Compare

FAQ

What is the best alternative to Qwen3.5-9B?

Gemma 4 31B from Google ranks first, based on independent benchmark scores. It costs $0.34 per 1M output tokens, compared with $0.15 for Qwen3.5-9B.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Qwen3.5-9B?

Yes. gpt-oss-20b charges $0.09 per 1M output tokens, versus $0.15 for Qwen3.5-9B.

Can I try Qwen3.5-9B and its alternatives at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to several models at once, so you can compare Qwen3.5-9B with any of these alternatives on your own tasks.

Send one prompt to Qwen3.5-9B and its alternatives at the same time, and keep the answer you like best.