[marci]

it's sometimes not really a matter of which one is better but which one fits best.

For example many have switched to qwen3 models but some still vastly prefer the reasoning and output of QwQ (a qwen2.5 model).

And the difference between them: those with "plus" are closed weight, you can only access them through their api. The others are open-weight, so if they fit your use case, and if ever the want or need arise, you can download them, use them, even fine-tune them locally, even if qwen don't offer access to them any more.

[jychang]

If the naming is so clear to you, then why don't you explain: for a user who wants to use Qwen3-VL through an API, which one has better performance? Qwen3-VL Plus or Qwen3-VL 235b?

[marci]

My precedent post should have answered this question. But since it didn't, I think I'm ill equipped to answer you in a satisfactory fashion, I would just be repeating myself.

[jychang]

Exactly. You're ill equipped to answer the question because you don't know. Qwen is terrible at explaining what the difference is, between the models that they serve on their API.

It's such a simple question: "For someone who does not want to run the model locally, what is the difference between these 2 models on the API?" and yet nobody can answer that question.