Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) 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
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 5.4 points higher (50.8 vs 45.4) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $4935; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 Max (0902).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 45.4 | −10.6% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 10.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $4,934.79 | −32.2% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 32.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.34s | 64.02s | +1.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 1.1% 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 (Max): 10.6% less intelligence, 32.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- 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 (Max)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/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill