Qwen
by Alibaba · github.com ↗
Family of open-weight large language models developed by Alibaba, spanning text, vision, and coding tasks, including the Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.8-Max lines.
llm open-weights multimodal
- Category
- Open Models
- Business model
- Open (open weights/source)
- Availability
- Global
- Launched
- 2023-08
- Record updated
- 2026-09-04
- Model family
- Qwen
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Founded
- 1999
- Headquarters
- CN
- Canonical URL
- https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/qwen/
Overview
Qwen is Alibaba's open-weight large language model family, covering text, vision, coding, and reasoning variants across many sizes. Recent public releases include the Qwen3.5 line and Qwen3.8-Max. Most releases use the Apache-2.0 license, making Qwen one of the most downloaded open model families worldwide. Models are available on Hugging Face and through Alibaba Cloud's API.
Key features
- Broad family: text, vision-language, coder, and reasoning models
- Recent Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.8-Max releases
- Apache-2.0 licensing for most releases
- Available via Hugging Face and Alibaba Cloud API
Use cases
- Self-hosted multilingual assistants
- Code generation with Qwen coder variants
- Fine-tuning open models for vertical applications
Pricing
Open-weight Qwen models are free to download; hosted access through Alibaba Cloud is usage-priced.
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen open source?
Most Qwen models are released with open weights under Apache-2.0 and can be self-hosted and fine-tuned.
Who develops Qwen?
Qwen is developed by Alibaba's AI teams and distributed via Hugging Face and Alibaba Cloud.
What is Qwen3.8-Max?
Qwen3.8-Max is a late-2026 Qwen flagship in Alibaba's Qwen3 line, following earlier Qwen3.5 releases for text, coding, and reasoning.
Similar products
- Baichuan — Open-weight bilingual LLM family from Beijing-based Baichuan Intelligence, now focused on medical AI with its Baichuan-M reasoning models.
- Command R — Cohere's open-weight LLM family optimized for retrieval-augmented generation and tool use; succeeded by Command A as Cohere's flagship.
- DBRX — Open-weight mixture-of-experts LLM released by Databricks in 2024; retired from Databricks serving in 2025, though the weights remain available.
- DeepSeek — Open-weight LLM family and chat assistant from Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, known for strong reasoning models. The official DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 API brings a major agent-capability upgrade via post-training, with native Responses API support and Codex adaptation.
- Falcon — Family of open-weight large language models developed by the Technology Innovation Institute (TII).
- Gemma — Google's family of lightweight open-weight models derived from the same research as Gemini.
Sources
This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-04.
Machine-readable record: /api/products/qwen.json · Spot an error? Suggest a correction