Alibaba's Qwen series (Tongyi Qianwen) — open-weight LLMs trained at scale, including Qwen2.5, Qwen-VL, and QwQ reasoning models. Among the most-downloaded open models on Hugging Face. Hangzhou HQ.
How Qwen compares with its closest alternatives
4 of the 5 closest alternatives have a free plan, as Qwen does. All 5 offer an API, as Qwen does. Qwen was founded in 2023; the alternatives were founded between 2019 and 2023, 1 of them earlier. Qwen is based in Hangzhou, China; 4 of its 5 alternatives are in China too, and the others in France.
Market position · AI Models
How Qwen compares in AI Models
Qwen has high opportunity and sits in the top third of 455 live AI Models tools on FalcoScan. Across AI Models, the average opportunity score is 74.6 and the average saturation score 30.5. FalcoScan rates Qwen's own market position as open. 200 of the 455 operating AI Models tools have hot momentum, and FalcoScan has recorded 13 shutdowns in the category.
The closest alternatives to Qwen that are still running, matched on the AI capabilities, uses and audience they share, are Zhipu AI, Mistral AI, DeepSeek, 01.AI, and Alibaba Cloud Bailian.
Is Qwen still running?
Yes. As of 2 November 2026, FalcoScan lists Qwen as operating at qwenlm.github.io.
Where is Qwen based?
Qwen is headquartered in Hangzhou, China.
Does Qwen have an API?
Yes. Qwen offers an API.
Who is Qwen for?
Qwen is built for developers, enterprises, and researchers.
How do I sign in to Qwen?
Sign in on Qwen's own website, qwenlm.github.io. FalcoScan reviews Qwen but does not run its accounts, so logins, passwords and billing are handled by Qwen directly.