Claude Sonnet 5 (High) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (High) 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.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (High) scores 4.1 points higher (31.7 vs 27.6) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($2086 vs $1165; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 27B (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (High) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 31.7 | 27.6 | −12.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 12.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,086.04 | $1,165.00 | −44.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 44.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.79s | 56.59s | +237.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 237.0% slower |
| 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 (High): 12.9% less intelligence, 44.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 237.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Sonnet 5 (High)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today'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-5-high/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-high/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill