Skip to content
ModelCap

Head-to-head comparison

Qwen3.5-9B vs GLM 4.5 Air

Qwen3.5-9B (Qwen) and GLM 4.5 Air (Z.ai) 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 9 September 2026

As of 9 September 2026, GLM 4.5 Air holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#94 vs #97); Qwen3.5-9B is 5.7× cheaper per output token ($0.15/1M vs $0.85/1M); and Qwen3.5-9B offers the longer context window (262K vs 131K tokens).

Which should you choose?

Choose Qwen3.5-9B if…

  • API cost matters — $0.15/1M output tokens against $0.85/1M, about 5.7× cheaper.
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.10/1M against $0.13/1M.
  • you need the longer context window — 262K tokens against 131K.
  • you want provider choice — 6 listed API providers against 3.
  • AA τ²-Bench Telecom is your yardstick — 86.8% against 46.5%.
  • AA Humanity's Last Exam is your yardstick — 14.9% against 7.0%.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Qwen3.5-9B was listed 10 March 2026, GLM 4.5 Air 25 July 2025.

Choose GLM 4.5 Air if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #94 against #97 (41.8 vs 41.1 points).

Qwen3.5-9B vs GLM 4.5 Air: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Qwen3.5-9B and GLM 4.5 Air
FieldQwen3.5-9BQwenGLM 4.5 AirZ.ai
ModelCap Index position#97#94
Index score41.141.8
EvidenceEstimatedMeasured
Input price / 1M tokens$0.10$0.13
Output price / 1M tokens$0.15$0.85
Context window262K tokens131K tokens
Max output tokens236K98K
API providers listed63
Weight accessOpen weightsOpen weights
Input modalitiesText, Image, VideoText
First listed10 March 202625 July 2025
PublisherQwenZ.ai

Evidence: publisher-corpus-prior over 182 held-out anchors (30%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 10 rows (70%); exceeds every named peer on 4 of 10 rows; optimism haircut 0.6 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 3.7 up toward the measured corpus · 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Qwen3.5-9B vs GLM 4.5 Air

Public benchmark boards where Qwen3.5-9B or GLM 4.5 Air has a published result
BoardQwen3.5-9BGLM 4.5 AirLeads
Arena codingArena (LMArena)—14271419–1435Only one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis29.2%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=true—Only one result
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis86.8%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=true46.5%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="GLM-4.5-Air":reasoning=trueQwen3.5-9B
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis14.9%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=true7.0%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="GLM-4.5-Air":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.

Qwen3.5-9B vs GLM 4.5 Air: common questions

Is Qwen3.5-9B better than GLM 4.5 Air?

GLM 4.5 Air ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 9 September 2026: #94 against #97. 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 Qwen3.5-9B cheaper than GLM 4.5 Air?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper on output tokens: $0.15/1M against $0.85/1M. Input tokens are $0.10/1M for Qwen3.5-9B and $0.13/1M for GLM 4.5 Air. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $0.27 for Qwen3.5-9B versus $0.69 for GLM 4.5 Air. Qwen3.5-9B costs 59.9% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-9B or GLM 4.5 Air?

Qwen3.5-9B has the larger context window: 262K tokens against 131K.

Which is better for coding, Qwen3.5-9B or GLM 4.5 Air?

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 Qwen3.5-9B and GLM 4.5 Air open-weight models?

Qwen3.5-9B: Open weights. GLM 4.5 Air: 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 Qwen3.5-9B and GLM 4.5 Air?

ModelCap currently lists 6 API providers for Qwen3.5-9B and 3 for GLM 4.5 Air, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Qwen3.5-9B vs GLM 4.5 Air comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 9 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.

Explore further