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

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B scores 64.1 (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

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B B

Best for Agents with access to an 8-GPU server, or calling a hosted endpoint, that want the strongest open Qwen3.5 with vision and a plain licence.

Ahead on

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

Watch for

No build fits a 256 GB machine, and Ollama has no local build

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 Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +30

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 70

Memory scores 0, since even the smallest 4-bit build, LM Studio's MLX 4-bit at 223.9 GB, needs about 269 GB with a fifth added, and Alibaba's own GPTQ-Int4 about 283 GB. Runtimes reach the 25 cap on released llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers and LM Studio's catalogue, though Ollama has no local build. Alibaba's FP8 and GPTQ-Int4 builds give builds 15. Apache 2.0 with nothing added gives terms 15, the ungated repositories give download 10, and Alibaba's Model Studio plus five live providers on Hugging Face 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 Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +10

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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. Alibaba answered none of the 40 most recent questions and reports, recounted on 2 November (0), and GitHub issues couldn't be counted. It's a first release at this size (5), and two template reports and a template fix 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 Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +5

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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. The card has no safety results (its SecCodeBench row is a coding capability), no 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 runQwen3.5-397B-A17BSenseNova-Loop-9B-PreviewEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%257040Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +30
Risk20%205550Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +5
Agent interface10%107060Qwen3.5-397B-A17B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%103444SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview +10
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 64.1/100D 46.8/100

Facts side by side

FactQwen3.5-397B-A17BSenseNova-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 release2026-02-162026-11-02
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Alibaba's biggest open Qwen3.5, a cousin for hard coding, agent and vision work. Even at 4 bits it needs about 270 GB, so most agents will call it through Alibaba's Model Studio or one of the many providers that host it. The main risk is silence, with no safety results, no agent guidance and template reports without a reply.

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

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

  1. The card's server command is vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3.5-397B-A17B --port 8000 --tensor-parallel-size 8 --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, and the FP8 build halves the memory
  2. It doesn't fit our 128 GB reference machine at any precision, so call a hosted endpoint instead (Model Studio's Qwen3.5-Plus, or a provider serving Qwen/Qwen3.5-397B-A17B)
  3. On Model Studio pass "enable_thinking": false directly, while vLLM and SGLang take "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false}
  4. 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
  5. For multi-token prediction in vLLM add --speculative-config '{"method":"qwen3_next_mtp","num_speculative_tokens":2}'
  6. Keep the context at 128K or more if you rely on thinking, and turn on YaRN only past 262,144 tokens
  7. 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, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B scores 64.1 (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 Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.