Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder 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 Sonnet 4.6 (Max) scores 20.9 points higher (30.1 vs 9.2) but costs 12× as much to run the benchmark ($4925 vs $405; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.1 | 9.2 | −69.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 69.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,924.80 | $405.10 | −91.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 91.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 78.98s | 6.20s | −92.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 92.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max): 69.4% less intelligence, 91.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 92.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Max)Qwen3 Coder 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-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-adaptive/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill