Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | Reka Flash (Sep '24) | Qwen3.5 Omni Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.2 | $0.1 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $0.8 | $0.8 |
Verdict. Qwen3.5 Omni Flash takes the aggregate benchmark matchup 1–0 across 1 categories. Real workloads usually care about a handful of specific tasks — see the per-benchmark table above.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Qwen3.5 Omni Flash makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. Reka Flash (Sep '24) is strongest on Intelligence Index (6.0). Qwen3.5 Omni Flash leads on Intelligence Index (19.2).
Speed. On throughput, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash generates tokens at 228 tok/s versus 2 tok/s — about 99% faster. On time-to-first-token, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash responds in 1810ms vs 27160ms, which matters most for chat-style UIs.
Provider. Reka AI and Alibaba sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: Reka AI tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Alibaba often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Reka Flash (Sep '24) costs $18.00 ($216/year); Qwen3.5 Omni Flash costs $15.00 ($180/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Reka Flash (Sep '24) ≈ $2.60/run, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash ≈ $2.10/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Reka Flash (Sep '24) ≈ $120/run, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash ≈ $100/run. Qwen3.5 Omni Flash becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Head-to-head deltas
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Qwen3.5 Omni Flash is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.28/M tokens vs $0.35/M for Reka Flash (Sep '24).
Qwen3.5 Omni Flash wins 1 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Reka Flash (Sep '24). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Qwen3.5 Omni Flash generates tokens faster at 228 tok/s vs 2 tok/s. However, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash has lower time-to-first-token (1.81s vs 27.16s).
Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3.5 Omni Flash for lower cost, Qwen3.5 Omni Flash for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3.5 Omni Flash for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.