Compare / Qwen3.5 9B vs Step3-VL-10B
Qwen3.5 9B vs Step3-VL-10B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 64.2 vs 53.2, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 5 benchmarks both labs report, Qwen3.5 9B wins 5 and Step3-VL-10B wins 0. Both need about 8 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only Qwen3.5 9B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.036 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick Qwen3.5 9B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you need precise instruction following
- you build agents that call tools
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
- you work with long documents
- you want the more widely used model (more quantized builds and community support)
Pick Step3-VL-10B if…
No clear advantage in the data we have.
Specifications
| Qwen3.5 9B | Step3-VL-10B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 64.2 (likely 59–69) | 53.2 (likely 40–64) |
| Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) · China | StepFun · China |
| Released | 2026-03-02 | 2026-01 |
| Parameters | 9B (dense) | 10B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~6.4 GB | ~8 GB |
| Context window | 262K tokens | 64K tokens |
| Input | text, image, video | text, image |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | Always thinks |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| API price / 1M tokens | $0.036 ($0.032 in, $0.047 out) | Self-host only |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 6.3M | — |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 9B | Step3-VL-10B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 82.5 | ≈ 73 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 80.6✓ | 69.0✓ |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | 14.9✓ | 10.8✓ |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 65.6 | ≈ 56 |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | 86.8✓ | 16.1✓ |
| IFBench Instruction following | 66.7✓ | 50.2✓ |
| MMMU-Pro Vision | 69.2✓ | — |
| AA-LCR Long context | 70.0✓ | 0.0✓ |
| SciCode Coding | 29.5✓ | — |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, Qwen3.5 9B or Step3-VL-10B?
Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 64.2 vs 53.2, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 5 benchmarks both labs report, Qwen3.5 9B wins 5 and Step3-VL-10B wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Qwen3.5 9B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.036 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 8 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Qwen3.5 9B has the longer context window: 262K tokens against 64K.
Can I use Qwen3.5 9B and Step3-VL-10B commercially?
Both are released under the Apache-2.0 license. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.