Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-07.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) scores 16.1 points higher (37.4 vs 21.3) but costs 4.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1037 vs $250; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 21.3, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 21.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.4 | 21.3 | −43.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 43.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,036.95 | $250.18 | −75.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 75.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 23.20s | 5.28s | −77.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 77.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 43.0% less intelligence, 75.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 77.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Sol (high) scores 57.30 for $955.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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