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Qwen3.5 alternatives

Native multimodal Qwen family with sparse MoE scaling, strong agent behavior, and a flagship 397B total / 17B active open model.

This Qwen3.5 alternatives guide compares pricing, strengths, tradeoffs, and related options.

Qwen3.5 is the most important recent Qwen family update missing from the site. It moves Qwen forward from strong multimodal understanding into more agentic native multimodal behavior, larger multilingual coverage, and stronger coding plus tool-use performance. For builders comparing current open multimodal families, Qwen3.5 belongs in the same short list as Gemma 4 and the newest Mistral releases.

Official site: https://qwen.ai/blog

Company YouTube: No official company YouTube channel found during official-page review.

At a glance

Pricing model Free
Page type Model family
Model source Own models
API cost No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use; hosted Qwen3.5-Plus access is usage-based in Model Studio.
Subscription cost No mandatory subscription for open-weight access.
Model last update 2026-02-17 (Qwen3.5 launch announcement).
Model weight counts 397B total / 17B active
Model versions Qwen2.5-VL generation, Qwen3.5 launch, Qwen3.5-Plus hosted model
Related model Qwen2.5 VL · Qwen3.5 vs Qwen2.5 VL
Key difference Qwen3.5 is the newer native multimodal branch with stronger agent behavior, larger language coverage, and better coding plus tool use than Qwen2.5 VL.
Best for Multimodal local assistant workflows, Private visual document analysis, Builders experimenting with vision-language tasks
Categories For Solopreneurs , For Small Business , Free AI Tools , Automation , Developers , Local LLMs , Vision LLMs

Model version timeline

Qwen3.5 release milestones
2025-01
Qwen2.5-VL generation
Prior Qwen multimodal generation focused on strong local vision-language understanding.
Source
2026-02-17
Qwen3.5 launch
Official release of Qwen3.5-397B-A17B as the first Qwen3.5 open-weight model with 201 languages and dialects.
Source
2026-02-17
Qwen3.5-Plus hosted model
Alibaba Cloud Model Studio hosted option with 1M context by default plus built-in tools and adaptive tool use.
Source

Top alternatives

  • Qwen3.6 : Qwen3.6 family covering the hosted Qwen3.6-Plus flagship and the first open-weight Qwen3.6-35B-A3B release.
  • Qwen3.6-35B-A3B : First open-weight Qwen3.6 model: a 35B total / 3B active multimodal MoE focused on agentic coding and practical local use.
  • Mistral Small 4 : Open hybrid Mistral model that combines instruct, reasoning, coding, OCR, and transcription in one 256K-context family.
  • Gemma 4 : Newest Gemma family with Apache-2.0 licensing, multimodal input, 256K context, and sparse on-device variants.
  • Qwen2.5 VL : Multimodal Qwen model family for local vision-language workflows.
  • Llama 4 : Open-weight multimodal family with massive context, but significant policy and license constraints.

Notes

Qwen3.5 is the Qwen family update that most changes the local multimodal leaderboard because it combines agent behavior, coding strength, and native vision-language capability in one flagship open model.

Comparison table

Tool Pricing Page type Model source API cost Subscription cost Pros Cons
Qwen3.5 Free Model family Own models No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use; hosted Qwen3.5-Plus access is usage-based in Model Studio. No mandatory subscription for open-weight access. Native multimodal design is stronger than many stitched vision-plus-text stacks; Sparse MoE design keeps active parameters much lower than total scale The flagship open model is still far heavier than commodity-laptop local models; Newer runtime support may lag behind more established Qwen branches
Qwen3.6 Free Model family Own models Qwen3.6-Plus in Model Studio is listed at $0.5-$2 input and $3-$6 output per 1M tokens depending on context tier; open-weight variants do not require vendor API spending for local use. No mandatory subscription for open-weight access; hosted Qwen3.6-Plus is usage-based in Model Studio. Covers both hosted frontier use and practical local deployment paths; Qwen3.6-Plus pushes 1M-context agentic coding and multimodal reasoning Family messaging is now split between hosted and open branches, which is less simple than Qwen3.5; Hosted pricing and behavior differ from the local open-weight experience
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B Free Model family Own models No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use. No mandatory subscription for base model access. Much more practical than waiting for very large Qwen3.6 weights; Strong agentic coding uplift over the previous 35B-A3B branch Still needs meaningful hardware compared with 8B-class local models; Hosted Qwen3.6-Plus remains the stronger top-end option if you can accept API dependence
Mistral Small 4 Free Model family Own models Mistral API lists Mistral Small 4 at $0.15 input / $0.60 output per 1M tokens. No mandatory subscription for open-weight access; hosted API is pay-as-you-go. One family covers reasoning, coding, OCR, and transcription; 256K context is practical for large document and repo workflows Still much heavier than 7B to 14B local models; Fresh releases can have uneven runtime support at first
Gemma 4 Free Model family Own models No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use. No mandatory subscription for base model access. Apache-2.0 licensing is simpler for commercial use than earlier Gemma branches; 256K context is strong for larger document and app workflows 31B still needs serious local hardware compared with smaller VLM options; Fresh releases can have uneven runtime support at first
Qwen2.5 VL Free Model family Own models No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use. No mandatory subscription for base model access. Strong local multimodal capability set; Useful for document and visual analysis workflows Heavier runtime needs than text-only models; Requires careful context and memory tuning
Llama 4 Free Model family Own models No required vendor API cost for local/self-hosted use. No mandatory subscription for base model access. Very large context windows for repository- and corpus-level tasks; Multimodal support for text and image understanding License includes attribution and derivative naming obligations; Additional licensing conditions can trigger at very large scale

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