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 2026-09-01.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) scores 34.3 points higher (55.6 vs 21.3) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($429 vs $250; both mid-range class). 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) | $429.35 | $250.18 | −41.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 41.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.80s | 4.61s | −57.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 57.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs GPT-5.6 Sol (medium): 61.7% less intelligence, 41.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 57.3% 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, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 57.50 for $138.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 57.50 for $138.
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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