Compare/Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B vs Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)

Llama 3.2 Instruct 3BvsQwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Meta

Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B

Input
$0.15/M
Output
$0.15/M
Speed
52 tok/s
TTFT
0.72s
Alibaba

Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)

Input
$0.03/M
Output
$0.15/M
Speed
202 tok/s
TTFT
0.23s

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (5-7)
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricLlama 3.2 Instruct 3BQwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.15$0.03
Output ($/M tokens)$0.15$0.15
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B$0.16
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)$0.04

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B
52 tok/s
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
202 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B
0.72s
Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)
0.23s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
9.727.1
Coding Index
17.5
Math Index
3.3
GPQA Diamond
25.5%77.1%
MMLU-Pro
34.7%
LiveCodeBench
8.3%
AIME 2025
3.3%
MATH-500
48.9%
Humanity's Last Exam
5.2%7.8%
SciCode
5.2%16.1%
IFBench
26.2%52.0%
TerminalBench
18.2%
Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B5 wins
7 winsQwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B or Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)?

Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.06/M tokens vs $0.15/M for Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 5 for Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 202 tok/s vs 52 tok/s. However, Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.23s vs 0.72s).

When should I use Llama 3.2 Instruct 3B vs Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) for lower cost, Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3.5 4B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.