Model Comparison
Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct
vs. Step 3.5 Flash
Comparing 2 AI models · 10 benchmarks · Alibaba, StepFun
Recommended Pick
St Step 3.5 Flash 16 metric wins Strongest on: Value, Input price, Output price
Best Value
Step 3.5 Flash
100.0 value score
46.7 reasoning / $0.15/1M
Lowest Price
Step 3.5 Flash
$0.10/1M input price
Best Reasoning
Step 3.5 Flash
46.7 reasoning score
Blends available reasoning benchmarks
Best for Coding
Step 3.5 Flash
31.6 coding index
Composite Indices
Higher is better; speed and price are normalized
Standard Benchmarks
Only benchmarks with data are shown
Differences That Matter
Best value
Step 3.5 Flash has the strongest quality-to-price mix at 100.0 out of 100 value points.
Price gap
Step 3.5 Flash is 7.0x cheaper on input tokens than Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct.
Speed gap
Step 3.5 Flash generates about 2.8x as many tokens per second as Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct.
Reasoning gap
Step 3.5 Flash leads Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct by 1.2 points on reasoning.
Coding gap
Step 3.5 Flash leads Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct by 16.0 points on coding.
Response Face-Off
Run one prompt through the selected models and compare response quality with live speed and cost context.
Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct
Alibaba
TTFT
—
Time
—
tok/s
—
Tokens
—
Cost
—
Step 3.5 Flash
StepFun
TTFT
—
Time
—
tok/s
—
Tokens
—
Cost
—
Which answer was more useful?
Full Comparison
| Metric | Al Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct | Top Pick St Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing per 1M tokens | ||
| Input Cost | $0.70/1M | $0.10/1M |
| Output Cost | $2.80/1M | $0.30/1M |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.22/1M | $0.15/1M |
| Specifications | ||
| Organization | Alibaba | StepFun |
| Release Date | Oct 21, 2025 | Feb 2, 2026 |
| Performance & Speed | ||
| Throughput | 76.1 tok/s | 209.8 tok/s |
| TTFT | 1189ms | 874ms |
| Latency | 1189ms | 10407ms |
| Composite Indices | ||
| Value Score | 11.9 | 100.0 |
| Reasoning Score | 45.4 | 46.7 |
| Intelligence | 17.2 | 37.8 |
| Coding | 15.6 | 31.6 |
| Math | 68.3 | — |
| Standard Benchmarks | ||
| GPQA | 67.1% | 83.1% |
| MMLU Pro | 79.1% | — |
| HLE | 6.3% | 19.1% |
| LiveCodeBench | 51.4% | — |
| AIME 2025 | 68.3% | — |
| SciCode | 30.1% | 40.4% |
| LCR | 31.3% | 43.0% |
| IFBench | 39.2% | 64.6% |
| TAU-bench v2 | 29.2% | 94.4% |
| TerminalBench Hard | 8.3% | 27.3% |
Key Takeaways
Step 3.5 Flash offers the best value at $0.10/1M, making it ideal for high-volume applications and cost-conscious projects.
Step 3.5 Flash has the strongest reasoning profile with a 46.7 reasoning score, combining the available reasoning-heavy benchmarks.
Step 3.5 Flash reaches a 31.6 coding index, making it the top choice for software development and code generation tasks.
All models support context windows of ∞+ tokens, suitable for processing lengthy documents and maintaining extended conversations.
When to Choose Each Model
Qwen3 VL 32B Instruct
- General-purpose AI
- Versatile applications
Step 3.5 Flash
- Cost-sensitive applications
- High-volume processing
- Complex reasoning tasks
- Research & analysis
- Code generation
- Software development
