Grok 4.6 (High) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (High) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (High) scores 35.1 points higher (44.3 vs 9.2) but costs 4.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1963 vs $405; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (High) when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (High) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.3 | 9.2 | −79.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 79.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,962.90 | $405.10 | −79.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 79.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.04s | 6.22s | −81.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 81.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Grok 4.6 (High): 79.2% less intelligence, 79.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 81.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Grok 4.6 (High)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/grok-4-6/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill