Compare / Qwen3.5-27B vs Claude Opus 4.1

Qwen3.5-27B vs Claude Opus 4.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 19 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-27B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.27 in · $2.16 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 4.1 Released 5 Aug 2025 · $15.00 in · $75.00 out
Qwen3.5-27B wins 7Claude Opus 4.1 wins 12

Of the 19 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.

Qwen3.5-27B or Claude Opus 4.1? The short answer

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3.5-27B: it costs 40 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $30.00 per million tokens, 40 times less.
  • They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (22.9 and 22.8).
  • Qwen3.5-27B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 5 Aug 2025 for Claude Opus 4.1.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-27B does better for reasoning and knowledge; Claude Opus 4.1 for writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

22.9
Intelligence Index
22.8
$0.74
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$30.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
200,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-27BClaude Opus 4.1
Price per million tokens$0.27 in · $2.16 out$15.00 in · $75.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.74$30.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.54 (Alibaba)–
Intelligence Index22.922.8
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens200,000 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)5 Aug 2025
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 145 of 164 not measured
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 82 of 198 102 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 98 of 188 33 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 121 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-27BClaude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 129 · 69 of 387 measured 1,409 1,450thinking-16k reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 112 · 88 of 163 measured 1,420 1,435
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 128 · 70 of 380 measured 1,408 1,447thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 86 · 87 of 243 measured 22.9 22.8thinking reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 74 · 106 of 231 measured 85.8% 80.9%thinking reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 95 · 137 of 242 measured 23.9% 12.5%thinking reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 99 · 10 of 230 measured 42.4think-prefill reasoning 69.9no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 49 · 8 of 230 measured 11.0%think-prefill reasoning 3.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 147 · 38 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.38thinking reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 80 · 75 of 104 measured 12.1% 11.8%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 96 of 104 measured 99.8% 92.4%
Show all 19 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-27BClaude Opus 4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 145 · 40 of 385 measured 1,358 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 112 · 59 of 338 measured 1,441 1,482thinking-16k reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 122 · 43 of 387 measured 1,401 1,458thinking-16k reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 135 · 51 of 386 measured 1,380 1,446thinking-16k reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 24 · 90 of 195 measured 75.6% 55.4%thinking reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 63 · 73 of 233 measured 77.7% 76.0%thinking reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 55 of 190 measured 32.6% 34.3%thinking reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 28 · 81 of 193 measured 93.9% 71.4%thinking reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-27B better than Claude Opus 4.1?

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3.5-27B: it costs 40 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $30.00 per million tokens, 40 times less.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-27B or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 82 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 102 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-27B 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 98 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-27B or Claude Opus 4.1?

Claude Opus 4.1 ranks 105 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 121 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-27B or Claude Opus 4.1?

Qwen3.5-27B: 262,144 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Opus 4.1.

Run Qwen3.5-27B and Claude Opus 4.1 on your own prompt

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