Compare / Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 vs Claude Opus 4.1

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 vs Claude Opus 4.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 Released 21 Jul 2025 · $0.15 in · $0.75 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.1 Released 5 Aug 2025 · $15.00 in · $75.00 out
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 wins 01 too close to callClaude Opus 4.1 wins 16

Of the 17 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Anthropic, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1? The short answer

Pick Claude Opus 4.1 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.8 against 12.0). Pick Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 100 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 is cheaper: $0.30 against $30.00 per million tokens, 100 times less.
  • Claude Opus 4.1 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.8 against 12.0.
  • Claude Opus 4.1 is newer: released 5 Aug 2025, against 21 Jul 2025 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 4.1 does better for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

12.0
Intelligence Index
22.8
$0.30
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$30.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
200,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507Claude Opus 4.1
Price per million tokens$0.15 in · $0.75 out$15.00 in · $75.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.30$30.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.15 (GMICloud, FP8)–
Intelligence Index12.022.8
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens200,000 tokens
Released21 Jul 20255 Aug 2025 (newer)
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 51 of 164 not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 129 of 198 102 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 85 of 188 33 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 98 of 152 105 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507Claude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 109 · 69 of 387 measured 1,422 1,450thinking-16k reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 94 · 88 of 163 measured 1,431 1,435
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 97 · 70 of 380 measured 1,432 1,447thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 153 · 87 of 243 measured 12.0 22.8thinking reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 136 · 106 of 231 measured 75.3% 80.9%thinking reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 144 · 137 of 242 measured 11.1% 12.5%thinking reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 80 · 10 of 230 measured 49.0 69.9no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 69 · 8 of 230 measured 15.0% 3.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 64 · 38 of 230 measured 0.36 0.38thinking reasoning
Show all 17 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507Claude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 122 · 40 of 385 measured 1,378 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 103 · 59 of 338 measured 1,447 1,482thinking-16k reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 104 · 43 of 387 measured 1,414 1,458thinking-16k reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 115 · 51 of 386 measured 1,396 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 113 · 90 of 195 measured 46.1% 55.4%thinking reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 177 · 73 of 233 measured 33.9% 76.0%thinking reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 110 · 55 of 190 measured 15.2% 34.3%thinking reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 127 · 81 of 193 measured 33.3% 71.4%thinking reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 better than Claude Opus 4.1?

Pick Claude Opus 4.1 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.8 against 12.0). Pick Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 100 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 is cheaper: $0.30 against $30.00 per million tokens, 100 times less.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1?

Claude Opus 4.1 ranks 102 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 129 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1?

Claude Opus 4.1 ranks 33 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 85 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 ranks 98 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 105 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507: 262,144 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Run Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 and Claude Opus 4.1 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.

Try the playgroundTalk to us