Pick Grok 4.7 for 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price or deepswe v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from grok 4.6's 65.2%; cursorbench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%. Pick Qwen 3.6 Plus for strong gpqa diamond science reasoning or open-weight and budget-friendly. On a tight budget at scale, Qwen 3.6 Plus is the value pick.
Grok 4.7 (xAI, US) and Qwen 3.6 Plus (Alibaba, China) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. Grok 4.7 is xAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks. Qwen 3.6 Plus is alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences
Price: Qwen 3.6 Plus is about 6.2× cheaper on input ($0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens vs $2/$6 per 1M tokens) — a large enough gap that at scale it can be the single biggest line item in the decision.
Context window: Qwen 3.6 Plus holds 2× more — 1M (~1,500 pages) vs 500K tokens (~750 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
Recency: Grok 4.7 is the newer model by about 6 months (released September 21, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Ecosystem: this is a US-vs-China matchup — they differ in pricing philosophy, data-residency options, and tooling ecosystems, not only benchmarks.
Specifications
Spec
Grok 4.7
Qwen 3.6 Plus
Provider
xAI (US)
Alibaba (China)
Released
September 21, 2026
April 2, 2026
Context window
500K tokens (~750 pages)
1M (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)
$2/$6 per 1M tokens
$0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
No — API only
No — API only
Modalities
text, image, code
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
78.8%
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from Grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price: Grok 4.7 — XAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks — and it is the newer of the two.
DeepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%: Grok 4.7 — Grok 4.7 lists deepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4% among its strengths; Qwen 3.6 Plus does not.
Trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems: Grok 4.7 — Grok 4.7 lists trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems among its strengths; Qwen 3.6 Plus does not.
Strong GPQA Diamond science reasoning: Qwen 3.6 Plus — Alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price — and it runs cheaper at $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens.
Open-weight and budget-friendly: Qwen 3.6 Plus — At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens it undercuts Grok 4.7 ($2/$6 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.
1M context: Qwen 3.6 Plus — Its 1M window holds about 2× more than Grok 4.7's 500K tokens in a single prompt.
Lowest cost at scale: Qwen 3.6 Plus — At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Largest single-prompt input: Qwen 3.6 Plus — Its 1M window is about 2× larger than Grok 4.7's 500K tokens, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume: Qwen 3.6 Plus — At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens it undercuts Grok 4.7, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases: Qwen 3.6 Plus — Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.
Anyone whose priority is 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price: Grok 4.7 — It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is strong gpqa diamond science reasoning: Qwen 3.6 Plus — That is its strongest area.
An enterprise with regional data-residency rules: Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus — Origin (US vs China) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.
Grok 4.7: where it fits
XAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks. Released September 21, 2026 by xAI, it is built for 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from Grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price, deepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%, trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems, and xAI's strongest safety guardrails to date, per the company.
Its trade-offs are real: release was delayed at least five times since late July 2026 before shipping, 500K context window trails several rivals now sitting at 1M+, and reviewers note it arrives "late to the AI frontier party" against GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, all shipped in the weeks just before it. At $2 in / $6 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.
Qwen 3.6 Plus: where it fits
Alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price. Released April 2, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for strong GPQA Diamond science reasoning, open-weight and budget-friendly, 1M context, and multilingual coverage.
Its trade-offs: less Western ecosystem tooling, and benchmark coverage still maturing. At $0.325 in / $1.95 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
This is less "which is smarter" and more "which ecosystem fits." Grok 4.7 (US) and Qwen 3.6 Plus (China) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. Qwen 3.6 Plus is the cheaper option, which matters at volume. The pragmatic move is to run one real task through both and judge the outputs against your own constraints — including where your data is allowed to be processed.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Grok 4.7, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Grok 4.7 leans toward 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price while Qwen 3.6 Plus leans toward strong gpqa diamond science reasoning, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus?
Qwen 3.6 Plus is cheaper — $2/$6 per 1M tokens vs $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens, roughly 6.2× apart on input.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen 3.6 Plus — 1M vs 500K tokens, about 2× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both Grok 4.7 and Qwen 3.6 Plus together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Grok 4.7, Qwen 3.6 Plus and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus?
Grok 4.7 — released September 21, 2026, about 6 months after Qwen 3.6 Plus.
Grok 4.7 vs Qwen 3.6 Plus
xAI · US | Alibaba · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick Grok 4.7 for 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price or deepswe v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from grok 4.6's 65.2%; cursorbench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%. Pick Qwen 3.6 Plus for strong gpqa diamond science reasoning or open-weight and budget-friendly. On a tight budget at scale, Qwen 3.6 Plus is the value pick.
Grok 4.7 (xAI, US) and Qwen 3.6 Plus (Alibaba, China) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. Grok 4.7 is xAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks. Qwen 3.6 Plus is alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences at a glance
▸Price: Qwen 3.6 Plus is about 6.2× cheaper on input ($0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens vs $2/$6 per 1M tokens) — a large enough gap that at scale it can be the single biggest line item in the decision.
▸Context window: Qwen 3.6 Plus holds 2× more — 1M (~1,500 pages) vs 500K tokens (~750 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
▸Recency: Grok 4.7 is the newer model by about 6 months (released September 21, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
▸Ecosystem: this is a US-vs-China matchup — they differ in pricing philosophy, data-residency options, and tooling ecosystems, not only benchmarks.
Side-by-side specs
Spec
Grok 4.7
Qwen 3.6 Plus
Provider
xAI (US)
Alibaba (China)
Released
September 21, 2026
April 2, 2026
Context window
500K tokens (~750 pages)
1M (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)
$2/$6 per 1M tokens
$0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
No — API only
No — API only
Modalities
text, image, code
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
78.8%
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from Grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price
Grok 4.7
XAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks — and it is the newer of the two.
DeepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%
Grok 4.7
Grok 4.7 lists deepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4% among its strengths; Qwen 3.6 Plus does not.
Trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems
Grok 4.7
Grok 4.7 lists trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems among its strengths; Qwen 3.6 Plus does not.
Strong GPQA Diamond science reasoning
Qwen 3.6 Plus
Alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price — and it runs cheaper at $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens.
Open-weight and budget-friendly
Qwen 3.6 Plus
At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens it undercuts Grok 4.7 ($2/$6 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.
1M context
Qwen 3.6 Plus
Its 1M window holds about 2× more than Grok 4.7's 500K tokens in a single prompt.
Lowest cost at scale
Qwen 3.6 Plus
At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Largest single-prompt input
Qwen 3.6 Plus
Its 1M window is about 2× larger than Grok 4.7's 500K tokens, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ Qwen 3.6 Plus
At $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens it undercuts Grok 4.7, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases
→ Qwen 3.6 Plus
Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.
Anyone whose priority is 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price
→ Grok 4.7
It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is strong gpqa diamond science reasoning
→ Qwen 3.6 Plus
That is its strongest area.
An enterprise with regional data-residency rules
→ Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus
Origin (US vs China) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.
Grok 4.7: where it fits
XAI's September 21, 2026 update — a 2.1T-parameter model trained partly on SpaceX hardware data, same price as Grok 4.6 but stronger on coding benchmarks. Released September 21, 2026 by xAI, it is built for 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from Grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price, deepSWE v1.1 (high effort): 71.0%, up from Grok 4.6's 65.2%; CursorBench 4.0: 46.3%, up from 40.4%, trained with supplemental SpaceX data (Starlink telemetry, manufacturing records, engineering failure logs) — xAI says this improves reasoning about hardware and physical systems, and xAI's strongest safety guardrails to date, per the company.
Its trade-offs are real: release was delayed at least five times since late July 2026 before shipping, 500K context window trails several rivals now sitting at 1M+, and reviewers note it arrives "late to the AI frontier party" against GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, all shipped in the weeks just before it. At $2 in / $6 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.
Qwen 3.6 Plus: where it fits
Alibaba's open-weight contender — surprising benchmark wins at a budget price. Released April 2, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for strong GPQA Diamond science reasoning, open-weight and budget-friendly, 1M context, and multilingual coverage.
Its trade-offs: less Western ecosystem tooling, and benchmark coverage still maturing. At $0.325 in / $1.95 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
This is less "which is smarter" and more "which ecosystem fits." Grok 4.7 (US) and Qwen 3.6 Plus (China) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. Qwen 3.6 Plus is the cheaper option, which matters at volume. The pragmatic move is to run one real task through both and judge the outputs against your own constraints — including where your data is allowed to be processed.
Want both Grok 4.7 and Qwen 3.6 Plus without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Grok 4.7, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Grok 4.7 leans toward 2.1 trillion parameters, up 40% from grok 4.6's 1.5 trillion, at the same $2/$6 per million token price while Qwen 3.6 Plus leans toward strong gpqa diamond science reasoning, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus?
Qwen 3.6 Plus is cheaper — $2/$6 per 1M tokens vs $0.325/$1.95 per 1M tokens, roughly 6.2× apart on input.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen 3.6 Plus — 1M vs 500K tokens, about 2× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both Grok 4.7 and Qwen 3.6 Plus together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Grok 4.7, Qwen 3.6 Plus and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, Grok 4.7 or Qwen 3.6 Plus?
Grok 4.7 — released September 21, 2026, about 6 months after Qwen 3.6 Plus.
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.