Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B for extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost or runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24gb consumer gpu. On a tight budget at scale, Qwen3.6 35B A3B is the value pick.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) and Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Alibaba) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Qwen3.6 35B A3B is a sparse 35B mixture-of-experts running on 3B active parameters — strong agentic coding at near-3B cost on consumer hardware. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences
Context window: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview holds 3.8× more — 1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages) vs 256K (~393 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 4 months (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Specifications
Spec
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Provider
Tencent (China)
Alibaba (China)
Released
August 28, 2026
April 16, 2026
Context window
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
256K (~393 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
73.4%
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
GPQA Diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it carries the larger 1M+ tokens context.
Terminal-Bench (85.4): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Qwen3.6 35B A3B is comparatively weak here — loses to its smaller dense sibling Qwen3.6 27B on every coding benchmark, despite more total parameters
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it is the newer of the two.
Extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — Qwen3.6 35B A3B lists extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — Qwen3.6 35B A3B lists runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Apache 2.0 weights with a 256K native context, extensible to about 1M via YaRN: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is comparatively weak here — text-only, no native vision support
Lowest cost at scale: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — Its weights are open, so at volume you pay for your own hardware instead of Hunyuan Hy4 Preview's $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens.
Largest single-prompt input: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Its 1M+ tokens window is about 3.8× larger than Qwen3.6 35B A3B's 256K, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Larger 1M+ tokens window fits more in one prompt.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost: Qwen3.6 35B A3B — That is its strongest area.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs are real: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Qwen3.6 35B A3B: where it fits
A sparse 35B mixture-of-experts running on 3B active parameters — strong agentic coding at near-3B cost on consumer hardware. Released April 16, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost, runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU, apache 2.0 weights with a 256K native context, extensible to about 1M via YaRN, and preserves its reasoning across turns, which cuts the overhead of agentic loops.
Its trade-offs: loses to its smaller dense sibling Qwen3.6 27B on every coding benchmark, despite more total parameters, its SWE-Bench score comes from Alibaba's internal scaffold rather than the standard public harness, and all 35B parameters must stay resident in VRAM even though only 3B compute per token. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.
The bottom line for this matchup
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen3.6 35B A3B overlap enough that the right pick depends on your specific job. Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs less per token; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview holds the larger context; and each leads in its own area — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3), Qwen3.6 35B A3B for extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost. Rather than crowning one, run the same hard task through both once and let the results decide.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3) while Qwen3.6 35B A3B leans toward extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B A3B is cheaper — $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens vs Open weight (self-host / free).
Which has the bigger context window?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — 1M+ tokens vs 256K, about 3.8× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen3.6 35B A3B together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, Qwen3.6 35B A3B 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, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 4 months after Qwen3.6 35B A3B.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Tencent · China | Alibaba · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B for extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost or runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24gb consumer gpu. On a tight budget at scale, Qwen3.6 35B A3B is the value pick.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) and Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Alibaba) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Qwen3.6 35B A3B is a sparse 35B mixture-of-experts running on 3B active parameters — strong agentic coding at near-3B cost on consumer hardware. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences at a glance
▸Context window: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview holds 3.8× more — 1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages) vs 256K (~393 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
▸Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 4 months (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Side-by-side specs
Spec
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Provider
Tencent (China)
Alibaba (China)
Released
August 28, 2026
April 16, 2026
Context window
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
256K (~393 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
73.4%
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
GPQA Diamond (92.3)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it carries the larger 1M+ tokens context.
Terminal-Bench (85.4)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen3.6 35B A3B is comparatively weak here — loses to its smaller dense sibling Qwen3.6 27B on every coding benchmark, despite more total parameters
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it is the newer of the two.
Extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Qwen3.6 35B A3B lists extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Qwen3.6 35B A3B lists runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Apache 2.0 weights with a 256K native context, extensible to about 1M via YaRN
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is comparatively weak here — text-only, no native vision support
Lowest cost at scale
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Its weights are open, so at volume you pay for your own hardware instead of Hunyuan Hy4 Preview's $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens.
Largest single-prompt input
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Its 1M+ tokens window is about 3.8× larger than Qwen3.6 35B A3B's 256K, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ Qwen3.6 35B A3B
At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Larger 1M+ tokens window fits more in one prompt.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3)
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost
→ Qwen3.6 35B A3B
That is its strongest area.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs are real: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Qwen3.6 35B A3B: where it fits
A sparse 35B mixture-of-experts running on 3B active parameters — strong agentic coding at near-3B cost on consumer hardware. Released April 16, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for extreme sparsity — only 3B of 35B parameters active per token, giving near-3B inference cost, runs at roughly 120 tokens per second on a single 24GB consumer GPU, apache 2.0 weights with a 256K native context, extensible to about 1M via YaRN, and preserves its reasoning across turns, which cuts the overhead of agentic loops.
Its trade-offs: loses to its smaller dense sibling Qwen3.6 27B on every coding benchmark, despite more total parameters, its SWE-Bench score comes from Alibaba's internal scaffold rather than the standard public harness, and all 35B parameters must stay resident in VRAM even though only 3B compute per token. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.
The bottom line for this matchup
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen3.6 35B A3B overlap enough that the right pick depends on your specific job. Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs less per token; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview holds the larger context; and each leads in its own area — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3), Qwen3.6 35B A3B for extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost. Rather than crowning one, run the same hard task through both once and let the results decide.
Want both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen3.6 35B A3B 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.
Is Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3) while Qwen3.6 35B A3B leans toward extreme sparsity — only 3b of 35b parameters active per token, giving near-3b inference cost, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B A3B is cheaper — $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens vs Open weight (self-host / free).
Which has the bigger context window?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — 1M+ tokens vs 256K, about 3.8× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen3.6 35B A3B together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, Qwen3.6 35B A3B 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, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 4 months after Qwen3.6 35B A3B.
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.