Qwen3.6 Plus vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.6 Plus by Alibaba or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-07-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.6 Plus scores 18.5 points higher (39.6 vs 21.1) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($526 vs $247; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Qwen3.6 Plus when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3 Coder Next.
| Metric | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.6 | 21.1 | −46.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 46.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $525.58 | $247.26 | −53.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 53.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 115.74s | 6.61s | −94.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 94.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $3.00 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Qwen3.6 Plus: 46.7% less intelligence, 53.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 94.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.6 Plus is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Sol (low) scores 49.40 for $353.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) scores 45.60 for $240.
Qwen3.6 PlusQwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-plus/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/qwen3-6-plus/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill