LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B vs Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next

A side-by-side comparison of LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B ($1.22 / 1M tokens) and Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next ($0.42 / 1M tokens) using current USD prices and capabilities from the api14 catalog. Both run through the same OpenAI-compatible API.

Specifications

	LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B	Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next
Provider	LiquidAI	Qwen
Input	$1.22 / 1M tokens	$0.42 / 1M tokens
Output	$1.75 / 1M tokens	$2.80 / 1M tokens
Cache read	$0.14 / 1M tokens	$0.25 / 1M tokens
Context window	128,000	262,144
Max output	8,192	235,929
Input	text	text
Output	text	text
Tool calling
Structured output
Reasoning control
Added	Aug 11, 2026	Feb 4, 2026

Key differences

Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next is 66% cheaper on input tokens.
LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B is 38% cheaper on output tokens.
Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next reads 2.0× more context (262,144 tokens).
Only LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B supports reasoning effort control.
A request with 1,000 input and 500 output tokens costs $0.00210 with LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B and $0.00182 with Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next.

Switch with one string

Both models use the same endpoint and request shape. Change the model value from "liquid/lfm-2.5-2.6b" to "qwen/qwen3-coder-next" and prompts, streaming and tools keep working.

LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B details & playground →Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next details & playground →

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api14.com/api/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.API14_API_KEY,
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  "model": "qwen/qwen3-coder-next",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Explain vector databases in two sentences."
    }
  ]
});
console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B vs Qwen: Qwen3 Coder Next

Specifications

Key differences

Switch with one string

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