Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, 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 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 46.8 points higher (56.0 vs 9.2) but costs 10× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $405; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 9.2 | −83.6% Qwen3 Coder Next is 83.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $405.10 | −90.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 90.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 6.44s | −94.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 94.8% 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 83.6% less intelligence, 90.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 94.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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