Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) scores 33.1 points higher (42.3 vs 9.2) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($860 vs $405; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.3 | 9.2 | −78.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 78.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $860.33 | $405.10 | −52.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 52.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.47s | 6.22s | −45.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 45.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 78.3% less intelligence, 52.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.8% faster 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 Coder 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 Coder 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-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill