Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 3.1 points higher (45.4 vs 42.3) but costs 5.7× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $860; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 42.3, and Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when 42.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 45.4 | +7.3% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 7.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $4,934.79 | +473.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 5.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.14s | 62.92s | +315.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 315.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 7.3% more intelligence, 473.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 315.6% 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 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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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-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill