GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) by OpenAI or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-07-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) scores 32.5 points higher (53.6 vs 21.1) but costs 2.4× as much to run the benchmark ($593 vs $247; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 53.6 | 21.1 | −60.6% Qwen3 Coder Next is 60.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $593.04 | $247.26 | −58.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 58.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.86s | 6.61s | −55.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 55.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $30.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs GPT-5.6 Sol (medium): 60.6% less intelligence, 58.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) scores 45.60 for $240.
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium)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/gpt-5-6-sol-medium/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-sol-medium/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill