Compare / Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 vs Claude Opus 4.6
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 vs Claude Opus 4.6
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 5 sources that measured both models.
Of the 18 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-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6? The short answer
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 31.9 against 12.7). Pick Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 10 times less per token.
- Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is cheaper: $0.97 against $10.00 per million tokens, 10 times less.
- Claude Opus 4.6 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 31.9 against 12.7.
- Claude Opus 4.6 is newer: released 5 Feb 2026, against 25 Jul 2025 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 4.6 does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.30 in · $3.00 out | $5.00 in · $25.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.97 | $10.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.75 (Alibaba) | $10.00 (Amazon Bedrock) |
| Intelligence Index | 12.7 | 31.9 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Released | 25 Jul 2025 | 5 Feb 2026 (newer) |
| Weights | Open | Closed |
| Developer based in | China | the 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.
From our research
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.
| Measure | Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 2 of 387 measured | 1,400 | 1,505high reasoning |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 133 · 6 of 380 measured | 1,404 | 1,501high reasoning |
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 133 · 4 of 385 measured | 1,371 | 1,501high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 147 · 47 of 243 measured | 12.7 | 31.9max reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 114 · 47 of 231 measured | 79.0% | 89.6%max reasoning |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 122 · 40 of 242 measured | 15.9% | 39.9%max reasoning |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 44 · 31 of 76 measured | 40.4% | 47.0%max reasoning |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 139 · 7 of 230 measured | 32.4 | 70.9high reasoning |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 166 · 8 of 230 measured | 30.0% | 3.0%max reasoning |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 194 · 3 of 230 measured | 0.31 | 0.42high reasoning |
| Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result | ||
| Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 55 · 9 of 58 measured | $-11.34 | $8,018 |
Show all 18 results (7 more)
| Measure | Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 85 · 3 of 338 measured | 1,466 | 1,547high reasoning |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 142 · 3 of 387 measured | 1,385 | 1,514high reasoning |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 4 of 386 measured | 1,377 | 1,500high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results | ||
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 101 · 96 of 195 measured | 51.2% | 53.1%max reasoning |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 59 of 233 measured | 72.0% | 78.0%max reasoning |
| Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 116 · 14 of 190 measured | 13.6% | 48.5%no reasoning |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 101 · 36 of 193 measured | 53.2% | 92.1%max reasoning |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 better than Claude Opus 4.6?
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 31.9 against 12.7). Pick Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 if cost matters more: it costs 10 times less per token.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is cheaper: $0.97 against $10.00 per million tokens, 10 times less.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 17 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 138 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 46 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 117 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 3 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 122 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 ranks 59 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 92 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6: 1,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
Run Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 and Claude Opus 4.6 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.