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 2026-08-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) scores 34.3 points higher (55.6 vs 21.3) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($580 vs $250; 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) | 55.6 | 21.3 | −61.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 61.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $580.17 | $250.18 | −56.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 56.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.03s | 4.63s | −58.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 58.0% 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): 61.7% less intelligence, 56.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 58.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Gemini 3.7 Flash (high) scores 56.00 for $485.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium)Qwen3 Coder 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/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