Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 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 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 2.5 points higher (42.3 vs 39.8) but costs 2.4× as much to run the benchmark ($860 vs $363; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8-Flash-Next.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 39.8 | −5.9% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 5.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $362.72 | −57.8% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 57.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.52s | 49.76s | +201.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 201.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 5.9% less intelligence, 57.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 201.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday'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-5-5-low/qwen3-8-flash-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/qwen3-8-flash-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill