Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 28.4 points higher (56.0 vs 27.6) but costs 6.2× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 27.6, and Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when 27.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 27.6 | −50.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 50.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $1,165.00 | −84.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 84.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 419.55s | 57.62s | −86.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 86.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 50.7% less intelligence, 84.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 86.3% faster end-to-end.
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill