# Arete-27B vs Qwen3.5-4B (slim)

> Qwen3.5-4B scores 61.2 (C) to Arete-27B's 55.1 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arete-27b-vs-qwen3-5-4b.md (~8,300 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arete-27b-vs-qwen3-5-4b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arete-27b-vs-qwen3-5-4b
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-10
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Qwen3.5-4B scores 61.2 (C) on agent readiness against Arete-27B's 55.1 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Arete-27B leads on documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Arete-27B: C 55.1, rank #123 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/arete-27b.min.md
- Qwen3.5-4B: C 61.2, rank #38 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwen3-5-4b.min.md
- Arete-27B, good for Agents that want Qwen3.8-27B's coding and tool use without its handling of politically sensitive topics, on a 24 GB card or a 128 GB machine Ahead on Documentation and upkeep, 63 against 34.
- Qwen3.5-4B, good for Agents that want a cheap local helper for tool calls, short reasoning and reading images on a laptop or small GPU Ahead on Reach, 85 against 50; Agent interface, 70 against 60.

| Category | Arete-27B | Qwen3.5-4B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 50 | 85 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 55 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 60 | 70 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 63 | 34 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Arete-27B | Qwen3.5-4B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Nous Research | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-03-02 |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Qwen3.5-4B +35: Arete-27B 50 (Memory 10, the only build from Nous Research is the 54.7 GB BF16 release, which needs about 66 GB and fits the reference machine.); Qwen3.5-4B 85 (Memory earns the full 30 because Ollama's own Q4_K_M build is 3.3 GB, about 4 GB with the fifth added, though Alibaba itself publishes no quantised 4B, so build…)
- Documentation and upkeep, Arete-27B +29: Arete-27B 63 (Model card 8, no limitations, context length, languages or cut-off.); Qwen3.5-4B 34 (The card covers five of the seven items and misses limitations and a cut-off (14).)
- Agent interface, Qwen3.5-4B +10: Arete-27B 60 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.); Qwen3.5-4B 70 (The template ships in the repository (20) and the model was trained for tool use with several calls per turn in the template (20).)