Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 30.0 points higher (57.6 vs 27.6) but costs 7.5× as much to run the benchmark ($8708 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 27.6, and Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when 27.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.6 | 27.6 | −52.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 52.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,708.20 | $1,165.00 | −86.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 86.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 626.13s | 55.12s | −91.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 91.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 52.1% less intelligence, 86.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today'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/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill