Grok 4 Heavy vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Grok 4 Heavy (2025) and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (2026) are agentic coding models from xAI and Alibaba. Grok 4 Heavy ships a 256k-token context window, while Qwen3.6-35B-A3B ships a 262K-token context window. On SWE-bench Pro, Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads by 9.7 pts. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit. It focuses on practical selection signals rather than broad model-family marketing.
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is safer overall; choose Grok 4 Heavy when provider fit matters.
Specs
| Released | 2025-07-09 | 2026-04-16 |
| Context window | 256k | 262K |
| Parameters | — | 35 |
| Architecture | - | moe |
| License | Proprietary | Apache 2.0 |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Grok 4 Heavy | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | - | - |
| Output price | - | - |
| Providers | - | - |
Pricing not yet sourced for either model.
Capabilities
| Grok 4 Heavy | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Grok 4 Heavy | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Pro | 39.8 | 49.5 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, SWE-bench Pro has Grok 4 Heavy at 39.8 and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B at 49.5, with Qwen3.6-35B-A3B ahead by 9.7 points. The largest visible gap is 9.7 points on SWE-bench Pro, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint differs most on function calling: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and tool use: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B. Both models share multimodal input, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
Pricing coverage is uneven: Grok 4 Heavy has no token price sourced yet and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has no token price sourced yet. Provider availability is 0 tracked routes versus 0. Treat unknown pricing as an integration gap, then verify the route you will actually call before estimating production spend.
Choose Grok 4 Heavy when provider fit are central to the workload. Choose Qwen3.6-35B-A3B when coding workflow support and larger context windows are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Grok 4 Heavy or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B supports 262K tokens, while Grok 4 Heavy supports 256k tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Is Grok 4 Heavy or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B open source?
Grok 4 Heavy is listed under Proprietary. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is listed under Apache 2.0. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for multimodal input, Grok 4 Heavy or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Both Grok 4 Heavy and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B expose multimodal input. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface. Use this as a quick comparison signal, then confirm the provider-specific limits before committing to production.
Which is better for function calling, Grok 4 Heavy or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the clearer documented function calling signal in this comparison. If function calling is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Which is better for tool use, Grok 4 Heavy or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the clearer documented tool use signal in this comparison. If tool use is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
When should I pick Grok 4 Heavy over Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is safer overall; choose Grok 4 Heavy when provider fit matters. If your workload also depends on provider fit, start with Grok 4 Heavy; if it depends on coding workflow support, run the same evaluation with Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.
Continue comparing
Last reviewed: 2026-04-23. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.