Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, 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.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 21.3 points higher (48.9 vs 27.6) but costs 3.4× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $1165; 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 27.6, and Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when 27.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 27.6 | −43.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 43.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $1,165.00 | −70.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 70.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 19.49s | 56.45s | +189.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 189.6% 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 (Medium, Default Fallback): 43.6% less intelligence, 70.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 189.6% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5-1-medium/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill