Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) by Anthropic or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-07-18.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Ef… scores 20.6 points higher (41.7 vs 21.1) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($427 vs $247; both mid-range class). Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Ef… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.7 | 21.1 | −49.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 49.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $427.33 | $247.26 | −42.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 42.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.96s | 6.89s | −23.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 23.1% 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 (Non-reasoning, High Effort): 49.4% less intelligence, 42.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 23.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (non-reasoning, high) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Sol (low) scores 49.40 for $353.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) scores 45.60 for $240.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto 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-non-reasoning/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-non-reasoning/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill