Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B vs SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview leads on documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B B

Best for Agents with a 128 GB unified-memory machine or two large GPUs that want a capable vision-language model with a plain licence.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 80 against 40
  • Risk, 55 against 50
  • Agent interface, 70 against 60

Watch for

Too big for a single 64 GB machine even at 4 bits

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview D

Best for Researchers who want to study or fine-tune a looped transformer, more than agents that need a model to call today

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 44 against 34

Watch for

No released runtime runs it. vLLM and SGLang need unmerged pull requests

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reach Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +40

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 80

Memory earns 10 of 30, since Alibaba's GPTQ 4-bit build is 78.9 GB, about 95 GB with a fifth added, which fits our reference machine but no smaller band. Runtimes reach the 25 cap on released llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers. Alibaba's FP8 and GPTQ-Int4 builds give builds the full 15. Apache 2.0 with nothing added gives terms 15, the ungated repositories give download 10, and Alibaba's own Model Studio plus Novita and DeepInfra give hosted too its 5.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 40

Memory 15, the only build is the safetensors set, 38.14 GB with its MTP head, since the Hub counts 9.41B of its parameters in F32. Runtimes 0, none of the six runs it in a released version. Builds 0, SenseNova publishes one set of weights and no quantised build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and on the card, which links the LICENSE in the GitHub repository, and nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API that serves it. 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 40.

Agent interface Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +10

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 70

The template ships in the repository (20) and renders several tool calls per turn for a model trained for tool use (20). Tool-calling format gets 10, because the card names the qwen3_coder parser but leaves the declaration and call format to the template. Thinking turns off per request and comes back in think tags split by the qwen3 parser (10), and 262,144 tokens is native (10). Structured output scores 0, as nothing documents JSON output for the model.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (7,756 characters). Tool-calling format 10, only the template says it: a tools block, and calls written as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Trained tool calling 10, the card says the training recipes include tool trajectories and that the model is for agentic workflows. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, the card documents enable_thinking in the chat template call, on or off per request, and the template puts the reasoning in think tags ahead of the answer. Context 10, 262,144 tokens in training, per the card's specification table, and config.json gives the language model 262,144 positions. 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 60.

Documentation and upkeep SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview +10

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 34

The card covers five of the seven items and misses limitations and a cut-off (14). Training data is a general description without a cut-off (5). The files last changed on 24 April 2026, 192 days before this check, past the 180-day band and within a year (5), and Qwen's GitHub repository holds only a README and licence, so no reference code of Alibaba's changed later. No Qwen member has answered any of the 21 discussions that aren't pull requests, recounted on 2 November (0), and GitHub issues couldn't be counted. It's a first release at this size (5), and a template fix and a run report still wait unanswered (5). 14 + 5 + 5 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 34.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 44

Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameter counts, the training context and the languages (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 5, one general sentence on the recipes, with no sources, sizes or cut-off. Last change 20, the last commit, on 2 November 2026, reworked the speculative decoding section of the card, 8 days before this check. Responsiveness 0, none of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (30 October to 9 November 2026) has a reply from a sensenova member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, labelled a preview, with dated news on the card. File health 0, the files contradict the card on precision. 14 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 44.

Risk Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +5

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 55

Safetensors only with no repository code run on load or to build prompts gives file safety 25, and files in the Qwen organisation the publisher's GitHub links to, each hashed on the Hub, give provenance 15. Plain Apache 2.0 keeps licence risk at 15. Safety evaluation, agent guidance and a security programme score 0, since the card has no safety results or cautions and no reporting route was found. The Qwen3.5 blog and Alibaba's security response centre couldn't be read, so both are scored as absent and left open.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 50

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the sensenova organisation, which the GitHub repository for the model links to (10), and the Hub gives a SHA-256 for the large files (5). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on instructions inside tool results or images. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no use policy, no threshold and no right to change the terms. Security programme 5, SenseTime's about page gives a security contact (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 50.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runQwen3.5-122B-A10BSenseNova-Loop-9B-PreviewEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258040Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +40
Risk20%205550Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +5
Agent interface10%107060Qwen3.5-122B-A10B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%103444SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview +10
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 63.1/100D 46.8/100

Facts side by side

FactQwen3.5-122B-A10BSenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorAlibaba (Qwen team)SenseTime (SenseNova)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-02-242026-11-02
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews3/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

A strong mid-size cousin for coding, agent steps and reading images or video, with thinking you can switch off per request. Alibaba's 4-bit build needs about 95 GB, which fits one 128 GB unified-memory machine, and several providers host it. The main risk is silence, with no safety results, agent guidance or answers from Alibaba.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

An unusual architecture under Apache 2.0, with a 256K training context, a thinking switch and tool calling in the template. It's a preview in practice too: no released runtime runs it, loading it runs the repository's code, the files are twice the size the card implies, and nobody from SenseNova has answered a question yet.

Before you call either

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

  1. Quickest start on a 128 GB machine is ollama run qwen3.5:122b (Q4_K_M, 81 GB of files, about 97 GB with context)
  2. Alibaba's 4-bit build serves with vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-GPTQ-Int4 --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --quantization moe_wna16, though that kernel isn't documented for AMD gfx1151
  3. Use the qwen3_coder tool parser and the qwen3 reasoning parser, as the card's commands do
  4. Turn thinking off with "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false} in the request body, since it's on by default and /think and /nothink aren't supported
  5. Sampling per the card is temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20 when thinking, and temperature 0.7, top_p 0.8, top_k 20 and presence_penalty 1.5 without
  6. Keep the context at 128K or more if you rely on thinking, and turn on YaRN only past 262,144 tokens
  7. Add --language-model-only in vLLM to skip the vision encoder and free memory for the KV cache when you only need text
  8. Validate any JSON it returns, since structured output isn't documented

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

  1. Read modeling_sensenova_loop.py before you load it. trust_remote_code runs it
  2. Pin transformers 5.18.0, the version the card checked
  3. Load with dtype=torch.bfloat16 as the card does, or the 38 GB of F32 weights stay at full size
  4. Pass enable_thinking=False to apply_chat_template for a direct answer
  5. Tool calls come back as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Parse them yourself, since no runtime ships a parser
  6. Wait for the vLLM or SGLang pull request to land in a release before putting it behind an API

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Qwen3.5-122B-A10B or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview?

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview leads on documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Qwen3.5-122B-A10B or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

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