Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Max): 4.2% more intelligence, 94.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.2% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 38.2 | 39.8 | +4.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 4.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,998.25 | $362.72 | −94.8% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 94.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 195.92s | 50.49s | −74.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 74.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Max)Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday'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/qwen3-8-flash-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5/qwen3-8-flash-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill