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Qwen2-VL-72B vs Qwen3-72B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Qwen2-VL-72B specs · Qwen3-72B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 128K-token context window.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesQwen2-VL-72B

    Qwen2-VL-72B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Qwen3-72B.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Qwen2-VL-72B edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Qwen3-72B's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Qwen2-VL-72B handles text, vision while Qwen3-72B handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Qwen3-72B is the newer of the two, released 8 months after Qwen2-VL-72B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Qwen2-VL-72B is usually picked for vision and ocr workloads, while Qwen3-72B sees more deployments in open source llm and commercial use llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecQwen2-VL-72BQwen3-72B
ProviderAlibabaAlibaba
ReleasedAug 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Apache-2.0)Yes (Apache-2.0)
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Qwen2-VL-72BPricing unavailable
  • Qwen3-72BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Qwen2-VL-72BQwen3-72B
  • MMLU,84.0
Pick Qwen2-VL-72B if

Qwen2-VL-72B fits when…

  • Top open vision-language model
  • Apache-2.0
  • Strong on documents
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick Qwen3-72B if

Qwen3-72B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 license
  • Strongest open-weight on Chinese
  • Strong multilingual coverage
Don't want either?

Consider Qwen3-32B

Alibaba's mid-size Qwen3, sweet spot for self-hosting at modest hardware budgets.

See Qwen3-32B specsQwen2-VL-72B vs Qwen3-32BQwen3-72B vs Qwen3-32B

Frequently asked

  • Is Qwen2-VL-72B or Qwen3-72B cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both Qwen2-VL-72B and Qwen3-72B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Qwen2-VL-72B or Qwen3-72B better for coding?
    Both Qwen2-VL-72B and Qwen3-72B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Both ship with open weights. Qwen2-VL-72B is licensed under Apache-2.0; Qwen3-72B under Apache-2.0.
  • When were Qwen2-VL-72B and Qwen3-72B released?
    Qwen2-VL-72B was released by Alibaba on 2024-08-29. Qwen3-72B was released by Alibaba on 2025-04-29.
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