Grok 4.6 (xhigh) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (xhigh) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (xhigh) scores 34.2 points higher (44.3 vs 10.1) but costs 5.9× as much to run the benchmark ($2830 vs $476; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (xhigh) when you need intelligence above 10.1, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 10.1 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (xhigh) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.3 | 10.1 | −77.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 77.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,830.07 | $476.03 | −83.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 83.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.73s | 5.52s | −88.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 88.9% 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 (xhigh): 77.2% less intelligence, 83.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 88.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Astra (medium) scores 49.70 for $2434.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Grok 4.6 (xhigh)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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