Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) scores 38.4 points higher (49.6 vs 11.2) but costs 34× as much to run the benchmark ($11161 vs $329; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 11.2 | −77.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 77.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $11,160.86 | $328.86 | −97.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 97.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 85.37s | 42.11s | −50.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 50.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback): 77.4% less intelligence, 97.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 50.7% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5 (Max, Opus 4.8 Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 57.60 for $8708.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-fable-5/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill