Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… scores 35.8 points higher (56.0 vs 20.2) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($7260 vs $2022; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 20.2, and Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when 20.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 20.2 | −63.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 63.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,259.50 | $2,022.49 | −72.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 72.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 465.48s | 13.84s | −97.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 97.0% 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 (Non-reasoning) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 63.9% less intelligence, 72.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 97.0% 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 (Non-reasoning) 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-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill