Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Qwen3.8 Max vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 22.5% less intelligence, 45.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 82.5% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.9 | 40.2 | −22.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 22.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,176.82 | $3,172.37 | +45.7% Qwen3.8 Max is 45.7% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.91s | 61.90s | +82.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 82.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) 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 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto 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-5-5-xhigh/qwen3-8-max-0803 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-xhigh/qwen3-8-max-0803?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill