Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) 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 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… scores 26.7 points higher (35.9 vs 9.2) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($482 vs $405; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 35.9 | 9.2 | −74.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 74.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $482.13 | $405.10 | −16.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 16.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.94s | 6.21s | +4.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 4.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback): 74.4% less intelligence, 16.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 4.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- 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 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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