Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-07.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low … scores 31.2 points higher (52.5 vs 21.3) but costs 2.2× as much to run the benchmark ($555 vs $250; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low … when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 52.5 | 21.3 | −59.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 59.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $555.25 | $250.18 | −54.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 54.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.51s | 5.28s | −60.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 60.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort): 59.4% less intelligence, 54.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 60.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Muse Spark 1.1 (xhigh) scores 53.20 for $547.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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