Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 5.5

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 5.5

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 13 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 5.5 Released 22 Sep 2026 · $4.00 in · $20.00 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 0Claude Opus 5.5 wins 13

Of the 13 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.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5? The short answer

Pick Claude Opus 5.5 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 57.6 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 18 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $8.00 per million tokens, 18 times less.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 57.6 against 19.3.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 is newer: released 22 Sep 2026, against 24 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 5.5 does better for reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
57.6
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$8.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BClaude Opus 5.5
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$4.00 in · $20.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$8.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$8.00 (Amazon Bedrock)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index19.357.6
Spring Prompt overall–85
Output speed, tokens a second–97
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released24 Feb 202622 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 6 of 20
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is not measured 5 of 19
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled not measured 2 of 8
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending not measured 5 of 19
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 116 of 164 2 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 3 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 1 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 4 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 152 2 of 152
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 24 of 24

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 Opus 5.5
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 4 of 387 measured 1,394 1,504high reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 2 of 163 measured 1,407 1,507high reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 10 of 380 measured 1,403 1,489high reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 1 of 243 measured 19.3 57.6max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 1 of 242 measured 21.0% 61.4%max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 4 of 233 measured 72.0% 84.7%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 9 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 70.0low reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 5 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 2.0%max reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 1 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.43max reasoning
Show all 13 results (4 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BClaude Opus 5.5
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 2 of 385 measured 1,342 1,516high reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 6 of 338 measured 1,419 1,541high reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 2 of 387 measured 1,386 1,517high reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 2 of 386 measured 1,363 1,519high reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Claude Opus 5.5?

Pick Claude Opus 5.5 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 57.6 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 18 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $8.00 per million tokens, 18 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 2 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 116 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 1 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 92 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 4 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 108 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 2 of 152 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 Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 5.5 on your own prompt

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