Grok 4.6 (medium) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (medium) by SpaceXAI 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
Grok 4.6 (medium) scores 37.7 points higher (59.0 vs 21.3) but costs 3.7× as much to run the benchmark ($930 vs $250; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (medium) when you need intelligence above 21.3, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 21.3 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (medium) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 59.0 | 21.3 | −63.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 63.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $929.97 | $250.18 | −73.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 73.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.29s | 4.61s | −83.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 83.7% 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 4.6 (medium): 63.9% less intelligence, 73.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (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, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 57.50 for $138.
Grok 4.6 (medium)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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