Compare / Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Claude Fable 5.1

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Claude Fable 5.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-397B-A17B Released 13 Feb 2026 · $0.55 in · $3.50 out
AnthropicClaude Fable 5.1 Released 1 Sep 2026 · $10.00 in · $50.00 out
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B wins 0Claude Fable 5.1 wins 22

Of the 22 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.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 16 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $20.00 per million tokens, 16 times less.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 53.4 against 21.4.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 is newer: released 1 Sep 2026, against 13 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Fable 5.1 does better for agents and tool use, professional work, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

21.4
Intelligence Index
53.4
$1.29
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$20.00
57
Output speed, tokens a second
65
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Fable 5.1
Price per million tokens$0.55 in · $3.50 out$10.00 in · $50.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$1.29$20.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.88 (Alibaba)$20.00 (Amazon Bedrock)
Cached input, per million–$0.25 cached input
Intelligence Index21.453.4
Spring Prompt overall–65
Output speed, tokens a second5765
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released13 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 71 of 166 16 of 166
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 48 of 51 4 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 75 of 200 5 of 200
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 70 of 189 19 of 189
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 76 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Fable 5.1
APEX-Agents reported by APEX-Agents · 1 result
Tasks passed% of tasks, higher is better 36 · 3 of 37 measured 24.9% 68.6%
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 6 of 387 measured 1,442 1,501max reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 70 · 3 of 163 measured 1,445 1,500max reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 73 · 17 of 380 measured 1,446 1,484max reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 98 · 3 of 244 measured 21.4no reasoning 53.4max reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 53 · 8 of 231 measured 89.3% 93.7%max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 78 · 2 of 243 measured 29.0% 59.1%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 77 · 31 of 230 measured 50.1no reasoning 63.9medium reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 134 · 8 of 230 measured 23.0%no reasoning 3.0%high reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 164 · 2 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.43high reasoning
Show all 22 results (12 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Fable 5.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 86 · 9 of 385 measured 1,405 1,482max reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 67 · 15 of 338 measured 1,477 1,521max reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 78 · 6 of 387 measured 1,434 1,497max reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 7 of 386 measured 1,421 1,491max reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 8 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 1 of 130 measured 51.3% 91.4%max reasoning
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 67 · 6 of 113 measured 0.0% 55.1%xhigh reasoning
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 64 · 8 of 121 measured 13.4% 47.2%max reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 61 · 1 of 131 measured 48.2 81.6max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 67 · 3 of 234 measured 77.3% 85.3%max reasoning
Output speedtokens per second, higher is better 58 · 53 of 73 measured 57.1no reasoning 65.1max reasoning
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 67 · 2 of 114 measured 44.8% 63.1%max reasoning
Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better 35 · 7 of 73 measured 1.64no reasoning 0.52low reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-397B-A17B better than Claude Fable 5.1?

Pick Claude Fable 5.1 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 53.4 against 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 16 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $20.00 per million tokens, 16 times less.

Which is faster, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 writes about 65 tokens a second on its usual API, against 57 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B (Artificial Analysis).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 71 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for professional work, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1 ranks 4 of 51 models on sale for real tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects, against 48 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 75 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 70 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Fable 5.1?

Claude Fable 5.1: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Run Qwen3.5-397B-A17B and Claude Fable 5.1 on your own prompt

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