Model comparison
Qwen3.6 Plus vs Step 3
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)
StepFunSummary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher in 8 categories and Step 3 in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 36.8.
- Step 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 47.5 | 40.5 |
| Released | 2026-03-31 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | — |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3 | — |
| Results tracked | 37 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1467 | 1367 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 57.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1461 | — |
| SciCode | 40.7% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 670.15 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Plus: —, Step 3: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,115 | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93), Step 3: 28.4 (#105)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1449 | 1355 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 62.3% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.3% | — |
| CritPt | 2.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 17% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 59.5% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 12% | — |
| DTBench | 81.9% | — |
| LMCA | 33.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 147.65 | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54), Step 3: 37.6 (#148)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1450 | 1366 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 38.2% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 93.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 26.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1454 | 1333 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 44.1% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Plus: —, Step 3: 35.5 (#86)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1177 |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70), Step 3: 46.3 (#159)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1424 | 1327 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | 1397 |
| LMArena German | 1452 | 1371 |
| LMArena Korean | 1379 | 1269 |
| LMArena Russian | 1434 | 1331 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1371 |
| LMArena French | 1455 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1389 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74), Step 3: 70.4 (#164)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1425 | 1332 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49), Step 3: 40.3 (#157)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1439 | 1326 |
| CL-bench | 20.3% | — |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82), Step 3: 54.3 (#151)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Step 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1437 | 1350 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1404 | 1321 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1438 | 1341 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.6 Plus better than Step 3?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.
Is Qwen3.6 Plus or Step 3 better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (40.8 vs 40.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3.6 Plus and Step 3 share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.6 Plus has 37 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.