Grok 4.5 (high) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.5 (high) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-07.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.5 (high) scores 34.5 points higher (55.8 vs 21.3) but costs 2.3× as much to run the benchmark ($579 vs $250; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Grok 4.5 (high) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Grok 4.5 (high) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 55.8 | 21.3 | −61.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 61.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $579.21 | $250.18 | −56.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 56.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.07s | 5.28s | −69.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 69.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Grok 4.5 (high): 61.8% less intelligence, 56.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 69.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.5 (high) 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 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Grok 4.5 (high)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/grok-4-5/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-5/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill