Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 0.6 points higher (45.4 vs 44.8) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $2732; both flagship class). Pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 45.4 | +1.3% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 1.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $4,934.79 | +80.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 80.6% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.73s | 65.39s | +413.7% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 413.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 1.3% more intelligence, 80.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 413.7% 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 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill