Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 19.2 points higher (46.8 vs 27.6) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($3158 vs $1278; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 46.8 | 27.6 | −41.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 41.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,157.66 | $1,277.59 | −59.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 59.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.25s | 58.08s | +416.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 416.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback): 41.0% less intelligence, 59.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 416.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Low, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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