Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 30.7 points higher (48.9 vs 18.2) but costs 4.4× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $896; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 18.2, and Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) when 18.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 18.2 | −62.8% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 62.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $896.39 | −77.5% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 77.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.49s | 46.69s | +139.6% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 139.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.38 / $2.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 62.8% less intelligence, 77.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 139.6% slower end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-6-35b-a3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-6-35b-a3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill