Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8-Flash-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 (Medium) scores 5.0 points higher (44.8 vs 39.8) but costs 7.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $363; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 39.8 | −11.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 11.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $362.72 | −86.7% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 86.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.85s | 50.52s | +293.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 293.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 11.2% less intelligence, 86.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 293.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Qwen3.8-Flash-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-medium/qwen3-8-flash-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/qwen3-8-flash-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill