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Head-to-head comparison

MiniCPM5 2B vs Qwen3.5-9B

MiniCPM5 2B (Openbmb) and Qwen3.5-9B (Qwen) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 15 September 2026

As of 15 September 2026, MiniCPM5 2B holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#106 vs #108).

Which should you choose?

Choose MiniCPM5 2B if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #106 against #108 (42.8 vs 42.1 points).
  • you want the more recently listed model — MiniCPM5 2B was listed 6 September 2026, Qwen3.5-9B 10 March 2026.

Choose Qwen3.5-9B if…

  • you want provider choice — 6 listed API providers against 0.
  • AA Humanity's Last Exam is your yardstick — 14.9% against 8.9%.

MiniCPM5 2B vs Qwen3.5-9B: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of MiniCPM5 2B and Qwen3.5-9B
FieldMiniCPM5 2BOpenbmbQwen3.5-9BQwen
ModelCap Index position#106#108
Index score42.842.1
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokensUnlisted$0.10
Output price / 1M tokensUnlisted$0.15
Context window— tokens262K tokens
Max output tokens236K
API providers listed06
Weight accessOpen weightsOpen weights
Input modalitiesTextText, Image, Video
First listed6 September 202610 March 2026
PublisherOpenbmbQwen

Evidence: 1 public benchmark observation across 1 board · publisher-corpus-prior over 194 held-out anchors (33%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 10 rows (67%); exceeds every named peer on 4 of 10 rows; optimism haircut 0.6 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 3.9 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: MiniCPM5 2B vs Qwen3.5-9B

Public benchmark boards where MiniCPM5 2B or Qwen3.5-9B has a published result
BoardMiniCPM5 2BQwen3.5-9BLeads
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis13.1intelligence-index:v4.3:reasoning-unspecifiedOnly one result
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis86.8%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)":reasoning=trueOnly one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis8.9%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="MiniCPM5-2B":reasoning=true14.9%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)":reasoning=trueQwen3.5-9B

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

MiniCPM5 2B vs Qwen3.5-9B: common questions

Is MiniCPM5 2B better than Qwen3.5-9B?

MiniCPM5 2B ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 15 September 2026: #106 against #108. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is MiniCPM5 2B cheaper than Qwen3.5-9B?

At least one of the two has no listed API price on ModelCap right now, so no price comparison is made.

Which has the bigger context window, MiniCPM5 2B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Both publish a —-token context window.

Which is better for coding, MiniCPM5 2B or Qwen3.5-9B?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are MiniCPM5 2B and Qwen3.5-9B open-weight models?

MiniCPM5 2B: Open weights. Qwen3.5-9B: Open weights. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run MiniCPM5 2B and Qwen3.5-9B?

ModelCap currently lists 0 API providers for MiniCPM5 2B and 6 for Qwen3.5-9B, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this MiniCPM5 2B vs Qwen3.5-9B comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 15 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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