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 2026-08-07.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Ef… scores 21.3 points higher (42.6 vs 21.3) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($416 vs $250; 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) | 42.6 | 21.3 | −50.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 50.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $415.75 | $250.18 | −39.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 39.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.06s | 5.28s | −47.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 47.5% 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): 50.0% less intelligence, 39.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 47.5% 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 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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