Compare / Qwen3.5-Flash vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Qwen3.5-Flash vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 5 sources that measured both models.
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 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Anthropic, every model from both labs.
Qwen3.5-Flash or Claude Sonnet 4.6? The short answer
They score about the same, so pick Qwen3.5-Flash: it costs 53 times less per token.
- Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper: $0.11 against $6.00 per million tokens, 53 times less.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Sonnet 4.6 does better for agents and tool use, writing and sticking to the facts.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.5-Flash | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.065 in · $0.26 out | $3.00 in · $15.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.11 | $6.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $6.00 (Amazon Bedrock) |
| Intelligence Index | – | 30.1 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Released | – | 17 Feb 2026 |
| Weights | Closed | Closed |
| Developer based in | China | the 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.
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.
| Measure | Qwen3.5-Flash | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 142 · 37 of 387 measured | 1,396 | 1,472 |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 123 · 39 of 163 measured | 1,414 | 1,461 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 137 · 19 of 380 measured | 1,403 | 1,482 |
| OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results | ||
| Average% resolved, higher is better 30 · 23 of 34 measured | 38.1%openhands | 44.5%openhands |
| Front end (SWE-Bench Multimodal)% resolved, higher is better 24 · 20 of 34 measured | 27.9%openhands | 30.9%openhands |
| Greenfield (Commit0)% resolved, higher is better 25 · 6 of 34 measured | 12.5%openhands | 50.0%openhands |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 64 · 48 of 76 measured | 20.3% | 35.5%high reasoning |
| Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results | ||
| Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 65 of 104 measured | 10.5% | 10.6% |
| Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 17 of 104 measured | 99.8% | 99.9% |
| Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result | ||
| Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 48 · 12 of 58 measured | $462.69 | $7,204 |
Show all 17 results (7 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.5-Flash | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results | ||
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 167 · 31 of 385 measured | 1,337 | 1,449 |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 135 · 28 of 338 measured | 1,419 | 1,506 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 148 · 22 of 387 measured | 1,381 | 1,474 |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 149 · 36 of 386 measured | 1,367 | 1,455 |
| OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results | ||
| Information gathering (GAIA)% resolved, higher is better 23 · 32 of 34 measured | 49.7%openhands | 13.3%openhands |
| Issue resolution (SWE-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 31 · 16 of 34 measured | 62.0%openhands | 74.4%openhands |
| Testing (SWT-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 31 · 24 of 34 measured | 38.3%openhands | 54.0%openhands |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.5-Flash better than Claude Sonnet 4.6?
They score about the same, so pick Qwen3.5-Flash: it costs 53 times less per token.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-Flash or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper: $0.11 against $6.00 per million tokens, 53 times less.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-Flash or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 ranks 54 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 143 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-Flash or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 ranks 31 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 115 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-Flash or Claude Sonnet 4.6?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 ranks 78 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 119 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
Run Qwen3.5-Flash and Claude Sonnet 4.6 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.