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 2026-09-22.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (high) scores 35.1 points higher (44.3 vs 9.2) but costs 4.9× as much to run the benchmark ($2352 vs $476; flagship 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) | $2,351.83 | $476.23 | −79.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 79.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 51.03s | 6.95s | −86.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 86.4% 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 (high): 79.2% less intelligence, 79.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 86.4% 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, Muse Spark 1.3 (max) scores 48.10 for $2000.
- 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 (high)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/grok-4-6/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill