Compare / Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Claude Opus 5.5

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Claude Opus 5.5

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-397B-A17B Released 13 Feb 2026 · $0.55 in · $3.50 out
AnthropicClaude Opus 5.5 Released 22 Sep 2026 · $4.00 in · $20.00 out
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B wins 1Claude Opus 5.5 wins 17

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.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 6.2 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $8.00 per million tokens, 6.2 times less.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 57.6 against 21.4.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 is newer: released 22 Sep 2026, against 13 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 5.5 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
57.6
$1.29
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$8.00
90
Output speed, tokens a second
97
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Opus 5.5
Price per million tokens$0.55 in · $3.50 out$4.00 in · $20.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$1.29$8.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.88 (Alibaba)$8.00 (Amazon Bedrock)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index21.457.6
Spring Prompt overall–85
Output speed, tokens a second9097
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released13 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 70 of 164 2 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 48 of 51 3 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 73 of 198 1 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 69 of 188 4 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 75 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Opus 5.5
APEX-Agents reported by APEX-Agents · 1 result
Tasks passed% of tasks, higher is better 36 · 2 of 37 measured 24.9% 73.5%max reasoning
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 4 of 387 measured 1,442 1,504high reasoning
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 70 · 2 of 163 measured 1,445 1,507high reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 73 · 10 of 380 measured 1,446 1,489high reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 97 · 1 of 243 measured 21.4no reasoning 57.6max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 77 · 1 of 242 measured 29.0% 61.4%max reasoning
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 66 · 2 of 112 measured 0.0% 59.6%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 77 · 9 of 230 measured 50.1no reasoning 70.0low reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 134 · 5 of 230 measured 23.0%no reasoning 2.0%max reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 164 · 1 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.43max reasoning
Show all 18 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BClaude Opus 5.5
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 86 · 2 of 385 measured 1,405 1,516high reasoning
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 67 · 6 of 338 measured 1,477 1,541high reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 78 · 2 of 387 measured 1,434 1,517high reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 2 of 386 measured 1,421 1,519high reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 66 · 4 of 233 measured 77.3% 84.7%max reasoning
Output speedtokens per second, higher is better 42 · 37 of 74 measured 90.0 97.4max reasoning
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 66 · 1 of 113 measured 44.8% 66.9%max reasoning
Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better 34 · 35 of 74 measured 1.59no reasoning 1.69low reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-397B-A17B better than Claude Opus 5.5?

Pick Claude Opus 5.5 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 57.6 against 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 6.2 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $8.00 per million tokens, 6.2 times less.

Which is faster, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 writes about 97 tokens a second on its usual API, against 90 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B (Artificial Analysis).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 70 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for professional work, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 3 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 Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5 ranks 1 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 73 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 69 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Claude Opus 5.5?

Claude Opus 5.5: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Run Qwen3.5-397B-A17B and Claude Opus 5.5 on your own prompt

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