Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-07-17.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… scores 34.6 points higher (55.7 vs 21.1) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($3753 vs $247; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… when you need intelligence above 21.1, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 21.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 55.7 | 21.1 | −62.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 62.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,752.55 | $247.26 | −93.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 93.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 43.42s | 6.61s | −84.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 84.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort): 62.1% less intelligence, 93.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.8% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Sol (max) scores 58.90 for $2824.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) scores 45.60 for $240.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill