Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Low) 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 Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 15.6 points higher (41.8 vs 26.2) but costs 5.9× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 26.2, and Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when 26.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 26.2 | −37.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 37.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,164.93 | −83.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 83.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 51.76s | 58.18s | +12.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 12.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 37.3% less intelligence, 83.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 12.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Qwen3.8 27B (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill