Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Claude Fable 5.1

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Claude Fable 5.1

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.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
AnthropicClaude Fable 5.1 Released 1 Sep 2026 · $10.00 in · $50.00 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 0Claude Fable 5.1 wins 17

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 14 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-14-7d7cf32c3f6d). See also Alibaba vs Anthropic, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1? The short answer

Pick Claude Fable 5.1 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 53.4 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 45 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $20.00 per million tokens, 45 times less.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 53.4 against 19.3.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 is newer: released 1 Sep 2026, against 24 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Fable 5.1 does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
53.4
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$20.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BClaude Fable 5.1
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$10.00 in · $50.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$20.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$20.00 (Amazon Bedrock)
Cached input, per million–$0.25 cached input
Intelligence Index19.353.4
Spring Prompt overall–65
Output speed, tokens a second–65
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released24 Feb 20261 Sep 2026 (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.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live not measured 17 of 22
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is not measured 6 of 21
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending not measured 6 of 21
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 117 of 166 16 of 166
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 4 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 94 of 200 5 of 200
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 109 of 189 19 of 189
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 153 5 of 153
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 26 of 26

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.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BClaude Fable 5.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 6 of 387 measured 1,394 1,501max reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 3 of 163 measured 1,407 1,500max reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 17 of 380 measured 1,403 1,484max reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 109 · 3 of 244 measured 19.3 53.4max reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 8 of 231 measured 84.5% 93.7%max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 107 · 2 of 243 measured 21.0% 59.1%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 31 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 63.9medium reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 8 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 3.0%high reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 2 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.43high reasoning
Show all 17 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BClaude Fable 5.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 9 of 385 measured 1,342 1,482max reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 15 of 338 measured 1,419 1,521max reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 6 of 387 measured 1,386 1,497max reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 7 of 386 measured 1,363 1,491max reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 1 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 91.4%max reasoning
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 8 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 47.2%max reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 1 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 81.6max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 100 · 3 of 234 measured 72.0% 85.3%max reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Claude Fable 5.1?

Pick Claude Fable 5.1 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 53.4 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 45 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $20.00 per million tokens, 45 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 ranks 16 of 166 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 117 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 ranks 5 of 200 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 94 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 ranks 19 of 189 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 109 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 ranks 5 of 153 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 112 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Claude Fable 5.1 on your own prompt

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