The closest alternative to Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking is Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) — comparable intelligence (27.1 vs 27.6); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M2.7 runs $0.250/M vs $0.260/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) is the closest alternative to Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking, with an Intelligence Index of 27.1 (Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking scores 27.6) at Free per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M2.7 costs $0.250 per million input tokens versus $0.260 for Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Thinking — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.