Model comparison

Qwen3-235B-A22B vs Qwen 3.8 Flash Next

Two Qwen tiers compared on the figures that decide which one a workload actually needs.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Qwen

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Balanced · Open weights

Qwen

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next

Budget · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
Specification	Qwen3-235B-A22B	Qwen 3.8 Flash Next
Provider
Provider	Qwen	Qwen
Tier
Tier	Balanced	Budget
Context window
Context window	128K	Winner: 262K
Max output
Max output	33K	Not verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokens
Input / 1M tokens	$0.70	Winner: $0.15
Output / 1M tokens
Output / 1M tokens	$2.80	Winner: $0.47
Weights
Weights	Open	Open
Parameters
Parameters	235B total / 22B active (MoE)	125B total / 6B active (MoE) + 51B n-gram embedding table
Reasoning levels
Reasoning levels	low, high, max	Not verifiedUnverified
Modalities
Modalities	text	text, image, video
License
License	Apache 2.0	qwen-community-1.0
API model id
API model id	qwen3-235b-a22b	qwen3.8-flash
Released
Released	April 29, 2025	August 26, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)	9.5	Winner: 39.8

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

2026-09-26
Artificial Analysis
Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.
Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.

Pricing tiers

Qwen3-235B-A22B: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next: Hosted qwen3.8-flash lists $0.15/$0.47 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio with a 1M context. The open checkpoint is 262,144 tokens native, extensible to 1M.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Qwen3-235B-A22B is Alibaba's widely deployed open-weight MoE — 235B/22B, strong price-performance.

Best for

Open-weight deployments
Self-hosting
Multilingual

Watch out

Needs multi-GPU for the 235B total; hosted rates vary.

BudgetOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next is Alibaba's experimental preview of the Qwen 4 architecture — very low active parameters plus an unusual n-gram embedding component for cheap long-context.

Best for

Early testing of Qwen 4 architecture
Cheap high-throughput work
Multimodal input

Watch out

Experimental preview; qwen-community-1.0 license is more restrictive than MIT/Apache; benchmark claims are vendor-reported.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next is cheaper on output at $0.47 per million tokens against $2.80 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — about 6.0×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

Run the model picker

Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Qwen3-235B-A22B: HuggingFace — Qwen3-235B-A22B (accessed 2026-08-29)
Qwen3-235B-A22B: Qwen — Qwen3 (accessed 2026-08-29)
Qwen3-235B-A22B: Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing (qwen3-235b-a22b $0.70/$2.80, thinking $8.40) (accessed 2026-09-26)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next: The New Stack — Qwen3.8-Flash previews Qwen4 (accessed 2026-08-29)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next: Yotta Labs — Qwen 3.8-Flash-Next specs (accessed 2026-08-29)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next: Hugging Face — Qwen/Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (accessed 2026-09-26)
Qwen 3.8 Flash Next: Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing (qwen3.8-flash $0.15/$0.47) (accessed 2026-09-26)

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Qwen3-235B-A22B · Qwen 3.8 Flash Next

Common questions

Qwen3-235B-A22B vs Qwen 3.8 Flash Next

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Flash Next cheaper for input?

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next is cheaper at $0.15 per million input tokens, against $0.70 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — roughly 4.7× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output. Qwen 3.8 Flash Next has tiered pricing: Hosted qwen3.8-flash lists $0.15/$0.47 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio with a 1M context. The open checkpoint is 262,144 tokens native, extensible to 1M.

Is Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Flash Next cheaper for output?

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next is cheaper at $0.47 per million output tokens, against $2.80 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — roughly 6.0× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output. Qwen 3.8 Flash Next has tiered pricing: Hosted qwen3.8-flash lists $0.15/$0.47 per MTok on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio with a 1M context. The open checkpoint is 262,144 tokens native, extensible to 1M.

Which has the larger context window, Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Flash Next?

Qwen 3.8 Flash Next accepts 262K tokens against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.

Should I use Qwen3-235B-A22B or Qwen 3.8 Flash Next?

Qwen3-235B-A22B is the balanced tier and Qwen 3.8 Flash Next the budget tier. The useful question is whether your hardest task actually fails on the cheaper one — most production volume such as classification, extraction and summarisation does not.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

Input price: Qwen 3.8 Flash Next costs $0.15 per 1M tokens versus $0.70 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — a 4.7x difference at the headline tier.
Context: Qwen 3.8 Flash Next takes 262K against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
Positioning: Qwen3-235B-A22B sits in the balanced tier, Qwen 3.8 Flash Next in the budget tier — most production volume (classification, extraction, summarisation) does not need the pricier tier.

Run the model picker Estimate stack cost All model comparisons

Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.