---
title: "Compare alternatives to Qwen3.6 Max Preview · Undominated.ai"
canonical: https://undominated.ai/alternatives/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/
description: "18 alternatives score at least as high as Qwen3.6 Max Preview and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 17 preserve recorded capabilities; 1 have named trade-offs."
---

# Compare alternatives to Qwen3.6 Max Preview · Undominated.ai

> 18 alternatives score at least as high as Qwen3.6 Max Preview and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 17 preserve recorded capabilities; 1 have named trade-offs.

# Alternatives to Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Qwen · LMArena 1446.8 · $2.31/M on a balanced workload · prices as of 2026-10-06

 [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/) Comparison context

Choose up to three standard models in Compare.

Requirements and prompt length apply in Compare. This page keeps its stated price basis and workload controls.

## 17 models are higher-scoring or cheaper, with neither dimension worse.

Of the 144 models carrying both an independent score and a published price at the same delivery mode, **18** score at least as high as Qwen3.6 Max Preview and cost no more under at least one listed workload, with at least one of those dimensions improved. **17** match or beat its recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning. **1** has a recorded capability loss, named on every row.

Dominance is not a property of a model. It is a property of a model, a capability lens and a workload, and all three are named on every row. Scores are LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset; prices are blended per million tokens. A higher score is not a drop-in replacement.

This page is built only while a candidate improves score or price without worsening the other under a listed workload. When that comparison no longer holds, it is not generated.

## Where it holds

| Workload | Qwen3.6 Max Preview $/M | Recorded capabilities preserved | Recorded capability losses |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Balanced | $2.31 | 13 | 1 |
| Summarise | $1.28 | 14 | 1 |
| Chat | $3.08 | 13 | 1 |
| Code gen | $4.11 | 13 | 1 |
| Agentic | $1.80 | 16 | 1 |

Workload mixes are defined on the [methodology page](/methodology/). Cached input is priced at the cached rate, and reasoning tokens at the worse of the reasoning and output rates.

## What you would be replacing

| Intelligence | 1446.8 |
| --- | --- |
| Context window | 262K |
| Max output | 65K |
| Input modes | text |
| Tool use | yes |
| Extended reasoning | yes |

Preserving recorded capabilities requires matching or beating these fields. [Full record for Qwen3.6 Max Preview](/models/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/), or [check Qwen3.6 Max Preview against the whole catalogue](/check/qwen__qwen3.6-max-preview/).

## Recorded capabilities preserved 17

Each option has a higher score or a lower price, with neither dimension worse under the listed workloads. It matches or beats Qwen3.6 Max Preview on recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

| # | Model | Intelligence | $/M | Holds under |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) Xiaomi | 1491 +44.2 | $0.540 | Balanced −77% Summarise −74% Chat −84% Code gen −84% Agentic −87% |
| 2 | [Muse Spark 1.3](/models/meta__muse-spark-1.3/) Meta | 1489.9 +43.1 | $2.00 | Balanced −13% Summarise −15% Chat −31% Code gen −28% Agentic −42% |
| 3 | [Muse Spark 1.2](/models/meta__muse-spark-1.2/) Meta | 1483.2 +36.4 | $2.00 | Balanced −13% Summarise −15% Chat −31% Code gen −28% Agentic −42% |
| 4 | [Gemini 3.6 Flash](/models/google__gemini-3.6-flash/) Google | 1479.5 +32.7 | $1.50 | Balanced −35% Summarise −45% Chat −43% Code gen −39% Agentic −56% |
| 5 | [Muse Spark 1.1](/models/meta__muse-spark-1.1/) Meta | 1479.2 +32.4 | $2.00 | Balanced −13% Summarise −15% Chat −31% Code gen −28% Agentic −42% |
| 6 | [GLM 5.3 Flash](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3-flash/) Z.ai | 1469.6 +22.8 | $0.238 | Balanced −90% Summarise −90% Chat −92% Code gen −91% Agentic −93% |
| 7 | [GLM 5.3](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3/) Z.ai | 1471.4 +24.6 | $1.00 | Balanced −57% Summarise −73% Chat −52% Code gen −48% Agentic −64% |
| 8 | [GLM 5.2](/models/z-ai__glm-5.2/) Z.ai | 1470.4 +23.6 | $1.12 | Balanced −52% Summarise −67% Chat −50% Code gen −45% Agentic −61% |
| 9 | [MiMo-V2.5-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.5-pro/) Xiaomi | 1465 +18.2 | $0.544 | Balanced −76% Summarise −74% Chat −84% Code gen −84% Agentic −86% |
| 10 | [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4.1-flash/) DeepSeek | 1462.5 +15.7 | $0.182 | Balanced −92% Summarise −95% Chat −92% Code gen −91% Agentic −94% |
| 11 | [MiMo-V2.6-Flash](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-flash/) Xiaomi | 1456.4 tie | $0.175 | Balanced −92% Summarise −92% Chat −95% Code gen −95% Agentic −96% |
| 12 | [Qwen3.7 Plus](/models/qwen__qwen3.7-plus/) Qwen | 1454.6 tie | $0.560 | Balanced −76% Summarise −77% Chat −80% Code gen −79% Agentic −83% |
| 13 | [Kimi K2.6](/models/moonshotai__kimi-k2.6/) Moonshot AI | 1455.5 tie | $0.961 | Balanced −58% Summarise −64% Chat −63% Code gen −60% Agentic −70% |
| 14 | [Gemini 3.8 Flash](/models/google__gemini-3.8-flash/) Google | 1497 +50.2 | $1.60 agentic | Agentic −11% |
| 15 | [Gemini 3.7 Flash](/models/google__gemini-3.7-flash/) Google | 1487 +40.2 | $1.60 agentic | Agentic −11% |
| 16 | [Kimi K3](/models/moonshotai__kimi-k3/) Moonshot AI | 1475.9 +29.1 | $1.23 summarise | Summarise −4% |
| 17 | [Grok 4.5](/models/x-ai__grok-4.5/) xAI | 1448.1 tie | $1.59 agentic | Agentic −12% |

## Alternatives with recorded capability losses 1

These improve score or price without worsening the other under the listed workloads, but reduce at least one recorded capability. Read the last column before switching.

| Model | Intelligence | $/M | Holds under | Recorded capability loss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [GLM 5.1](/models/z-ai__glm-5.1/) Z.ai | 1461.5 +14.7 | $1.83 | Balanced −21% Summarise −10% Chat −34% Code gen −35% Agentic −32% | 262K → 205K context |

## What this compares, and what it leaves out

 - Quality is LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset. The 95% confidence interval on a difference between two scores is about ±10.47 points, so a gap smaller than that is marked *tie* rather than an improvement — see [significance bands](/significance/).
 - 204 further models at this delivery mode carry a price but no independent score. They are absent from the comparison in both directions — unrated is not a zero, and an unmeasured model is neither an alternative nor a worse buy.
 - Retired models are never offered as an alternative, and a model only competes against its own delivery mode: batch trades latency for price, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
 - Nothing here measures latency, throughput, rate limits or how a model behaves on your prompts. Two models with the same index score are not interchangeable.
 - Models with no higher-scoring or cheaper alternative that is no worse on the other axis are on the [value frontier](/frontier/). Models with such an alternative are [listed here](/alternatives/).

## Continue your investigation

 - [Check requirements](/check/)
- [Compare exact differences](/compare/)
- [Set a quality floor](/cheapest-at/)
- [Inspect tier boundaries](/cliffs/)