Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Me… scores 18.3 points higher (28.4 vs 10.1) but costs 2.6× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $476; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Me… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.4 | 10.1 | −64.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 64.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $476.03 | −60.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 60.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.32s | 5.52s | −40.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 40.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort): 64.4% less intelligence, 60.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill