Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) 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 (High) scores 36.9 points higher (48.1 vs 11.2) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $329; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 11.2 | −76.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 76.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $328.86 | −92.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 92.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.99s | 43.21s | +105.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 105.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 76.7% less intelligence, 92.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 105.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 5 (High)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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-high/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill