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 2026-09-22.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (medium) scores 33.6 points higher (42.8 vs 9.2) but costs 4.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1937 vs $476; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (medium) when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (medium) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.8 | 9.2 | −78.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 78.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,936.75 | $476.23 | −75.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 75.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 43.22s | 6.95s | −83.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 83.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Grok 4.6 (medium): 78.5% less intelligence, 75.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 83.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (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.
Grok 4.6 (medium)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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