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 2026-09-22.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-5.6 Sol (medium) scores 30.0 points higher (39.2 vs 9.2) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($997 vs $476; 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) | 39.2 | 9.2 | −76.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 76.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $997.39 | $476.23 | −52.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 52.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.48s | 6.95s | −44.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 44.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs GPT-5.6 Sol (medium): 76.5% less intelligence, 52.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.3% 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, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
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