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Claude Opus 5 vs Qwen3.6 Max

Full profiles: Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic) and Qwen3.6 Max (Alibaba): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 26 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality (68.8 vs 62.3 on the BenchLeader Index), but Qwen3.6 Max (max) costs 3.4× less, so it is the better buy unless you need the extra quality. Pick Claude Opus 5 for reasoning (74 vs 58); pick Qwen3.6 Max for agents & tools (72 vs 64).

Claude Opus 5 benchmarks max Anthropic Qwen3.6 Max benchmarks max AlibabaOpen in the comparison tool

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingClaude Opus 570 vs 57 category score; Arena WebDev 1691 vs 1482High
Agents & tool useQwen3.6 Max72 vs 64 category scoreHigh
MathsClaude Opus 571 vs 65 category score; Arena Maths 1517 vs 1476Medium
ReasoningClaude Opus 574 vs 58 category score; GPQA Diamond 93.9% vs 87.4%High
KnowledgeClaude Opus 572 vs 62 category score; SimpleQA Verified 59.9% vs 52.0%High
Long documentsEither65 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 79.3% vs 80.7%Either
Chat quality (human preference)Claude Opus 569 vs 65 on Arena votesMedium
Lowest costQwen3.6 Max$2.96 vs $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.111 vs $0.400–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 68.8 vs 62.3.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max) is stronger in coding, composite, human preference, knowledge, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max) is stronger in agents & tools, long context, instruction following.
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max) is 3.4× cheaper ($2.96 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5Qwen3.6 Max
DeveloperAnthropicAlibaba
Released24 Jul 202620 Apr 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,000245,800
Compared atClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$1.32 / $7.90 / $0.132

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)Leader
Reasoning74.158.1Claude Opus 5
Coding70.256.6Claude Opus 5
Agents & tools64.372.1Qwen3.6 Max
Maths70.664.9Claude Opus 5
Knowledge71.662.3Claude Opus 5
Instruction following–74.6not comparable
Human preference68.564.8Claude Opus 5
Multimodal67.9–not comparable
Long context64.765.4level
Composite86.361.2Claude Opus 5

Where sources disagree

Across the 20 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 18, Qwen3.6 Max leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)Leader
BenchLeader Index68.862.3Claude Opus 5
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.250.828.4Claude Opus 5
Arena Text14911461Claude Opus 5

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$2.96
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$1.32 / $7.90
Cached input per 1M$0.500$0.132
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0029
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.021
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.020
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.111
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0042
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$5.86–
Output speed51 tok/s–
Time to first answer68.7 s–
Time to a complete answer78.4 s–

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5 (max) scores 68.8 and takes 69 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5 (high) scores 67.9 in 17 s, Claude Opus 5 (xhigh) scores 67.4 in 31 s. Qwen3.6 Max (max) scores 62.3. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

127 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader68.862.3
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader64.372.1
Coding scoreBenchLeader70.256.6
Composite scoreBenchLeader86.361.2
Human preference scoreBenchLeader68.564.8
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader71.662.3
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.765.4
Maths scoreBenchLeader70.664.9
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader67.9–
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader74.158.1
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–74.6
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$2.96
Output speedBenchLeader51 tok/s–
Time to first answerBenchLeader68.7 s–
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens245,800 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.9%87.4%
SimpleBenchSimpleBench80.6%†63.0%
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)15151483
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.2%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis93.2%88.8%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis54.9%30.8%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.4%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize90.4%–
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize30.2%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis29.1%3.7%
MysteryMechanismVals AI37.4%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%19.0%†
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.3%42.5%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub97.6%87.2%
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.5%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub12.0%†–
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–76.7%
SciCodeSciCode56.4%–
WeirdMLWeirdML91.8%–
FrontierCodeCognition53.4%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)15281512
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)16911482
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.5%–
Show all 127 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Coding
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.0%†–
IOIVals AI84.3%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI97.0%†72.8%
Code MigrationVals AI57.5%†–
ProgramBenchVals AI3.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI28.5%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI88.4%†–
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL63.2%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL62.2%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.7%–
CursorBenchCursor46.6%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2164.6†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis49.0%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis89.1%–
Startrise FrontendStartrise82.3%†–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench51.8%–
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld31.4%–
APEX-AgentsMercor65.8%–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)8.2–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench65.2%–
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis–43.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis–95.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI84.6%†–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL85.8%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL57.0%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench48.7%–
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis42.1%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis53.8%–
CUA-benchVals AI9.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI65.4%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI6.7%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.3%†–
SkillsBenchVals AI60.4%†–
SREBenchVals AI12.2%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI45.5%†–
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI–51.7%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI53.5%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI27.1%†–
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI18.8%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1214†–
BALROGBALROG63.4%–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub35.0%†–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub79.6%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs11181.9†4254.2
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis56.6%–
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis21.6%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis47.5%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1657–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis28.6%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis25.9%–
FACTS SearchGoogle85.3%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.6%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.2%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%91.1%
ProofBenchVals AI99.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench95.7%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)15171476
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.9%52.0%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench74.5%–
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis37.19.2
MMLU-ProVals AI91.6%†–
LegalBenchVals AI87.0%†–
CorpFinVals AI73.2%†66.5%
TaxEvalVals AI75.1%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†–
CaseLaw v2Vals AI–47.9%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.6%†–
MedCodeVals AI63.6%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.0%†–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI76.9%†–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL53.7%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.7%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%–
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis60.9%37.9%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis39.2%53.8%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench88.7%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench63.8%–
IFBenchArtificial Analysis–76.6%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)14951452
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)14911461
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1360†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)14741438
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)14871468
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)15031474
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1320†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis84.7%–
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.9%†–
MortgageTaxVals AI72.1%†–
SAGEVals AI49.4%†–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.4%†–
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis79.3%80.7%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1490†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis11.1%–
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub163.9†149.4
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench80.1%–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis50.828.4
Vals RSI IndexVals AI33.0%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI47.9%†–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI73.9%†–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL16.8%†–

Data as of 2026-10-26. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench); 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): BenchLeader Index 68.3 → 68.9.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 4 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, AA-Omniscience: accuracy, AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination…).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max): BenchLeader Index 62.8 → 62.3.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 2 score revisions.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 2 new results (Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA), DeepSec-Bench (AA)).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (DrugDiscoveryBench).

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Opus 5 vs Qwen3.6 Max: questions

Is Claude Opus 5 better than Qwen3.6 Max?
Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 68.8 vs 62.3. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5 (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-26, but check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or Qwen3.6 Max, and will that change?
Qwen3.6 Max is cheaper today: $2.96 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5 better than Qwen3.6 Max for coding?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher in coding (70 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1691 for Claude Opus 5 against 1482 for Qwen3.6 Max.
Is Claude Opus 5 better than Qwen3.6 Max for agents and tool use?
Qwen3.6 Max scores higher in agentic tasks (72 vs 64 on the category index, where 50 is average).
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 65). Claude Opus 5 accepts more context: 1,000,000 against 245,800 tokens for Qwen3.6 Max.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 5 vs Qwen3.6 Max?
Across the 20 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 18, Qwen3.6 Max leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.
When was Claude Opus 5 released?
Claude Opus 5 was released on 24 Jul 2026.