Compare / Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Claude Opus 5
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Claude Opus 5
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 24 results on 5 sources that measured both models.
Of the 24 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.
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5? The short answer
Pick Claude Opus 5 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 50.8 against 45.4). Pick Qwen3.8-Max (0902) if cost matters more: it costs 3.3 times less per token.
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is cheaper: $3.00 against $10.00 per million tokens, 3.3 times less.
- Claude Opus 5 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 50.8 against 45.4.
- Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is newer: released 3 Aug 2026, against 24 Jul 2026 for Claude Opus 5.
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Claude Opus 5 does better for agents and tool use, professional work, reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Claude Opus 5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $2.00 in · $6.00 out | $5.00 in · $25.00 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $3.00 | $10.00 |
| Cheapest host, blended | – | $10.00 (Amazon Bedrock) |
| Cached input, per million | – | $0.50 cached input |
| Intelligence Index | 45.4 | 50.8 |
| Spring Prompt overall | 48 | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 37 | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Released | 3 Aug 2026 (newer) | 24 Jul 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 | Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Claude Opus 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 20 · 11 of 387 measured | 1,482 | 1,490high reasoning |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 22 · 5 of 163 measured | 1,472 | 1,489max reasoning |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 16 · 13 of 380 measured | 1,484 | 1,486high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 14 · 7 of 243 measured | 45.4 | 50.8max reasoning |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 15 · 8 of 231 measured | 92.8% | 93.7%high reasoning |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 24 · 6 of 242 measured | 43.1% | 54.9%max reasoning |
| GDP.pdf reported by GDP.pdf · 1 result | ||
| Professional document tasks% of rubric, higher is better 13 · 9 of 32 measured | 23.2%xhigh reasoning | 24.0%max reasoning |
| SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result | ||
| Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 30 · 16 of 76 measured | 47.3%xhigh reasoning | 59.9%max reasoning |
| τ²-bench reported by τ²-bench · 2 results | ||
| Consistency (pass^4) · tau2 v1.0.1, banking knowledge, alltools retrieval% of tasks, higher is better 1 · 2 of 21 measured | 35.1%xhigh reasoning, tau2 | 32.0%max reasoning, tau2 |
| Task success (pass^1) · tau2 v1.0.1, banking knowledge, alltools retrieval% of tasks, higher is better 1 · 2 of 21 measured | 55.2%xhigh reasoning, tau2 | 48.7%max reasoning, tau2 |
Show all 24 results (14 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.8-Max (0902) | Claude Opus 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 8 results | ||
| Confirmed task success · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 20 · 7 of 48 measured | 0.05arena agent | 0.10max reasoning, arena agent |
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 17 · 11 of 385 measured | 1,468 | 1,471high reasoning |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 20 · 5 of 338 measured | 1,513 | 1,543high reasoning |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 25 · 7 of 387 measured | 1,474 | 1,496high reasoning |
| Praise over complaint · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 20 · 10 of 48 measured | 0.03arena agent | 0.17high reasoning, arena agent |
| Steerability · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 18 · 9 of 48 measured | 0.03arena agent | 0.07high reasoning, arena agent |
| Tool grounding · AgentIPS effect estimate, higher is better 43 · 5 of 48 measured | -0.01arena agent | 0.00high reasoning, arena agent |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 18 · 12 of 386 measured | 1,472 | 1,480high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 6 results | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 5 · 4 of 130 measured | 88.8% | 89.1%max reasoning |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 12 · 7 of 112 measured | 38.9% | 49.0%max reasoning |
| τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 13 of 121 measured | 47.8% | 44.7%high reasoning |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 10 · 3 of 131 measured | 76.2 | 78.0max reasoning |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 35 · 24 of 233 measured | 80.3% | 82.0%medium reasoning |
| SciCode% of problems, higher is better 36 · 20 of 113 measured | 52.1% | 56.4%max reasoning |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.8-Max (0902) better than Claude Opus 5?
Pick Claude Opus 5 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 50.8 against 45.4). Pick Qwen3.8-Max (0902) if cost matters more: it costs 3.3 times less per token.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is cheaper: $3.00 against $10.00 per million tokens, 3.3 times less.
Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5 ranks 6 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 7 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Which is better for professional work, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5 ranks 7 of 51 models on sale for real tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects, against 18 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5 ranks 6 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 17 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5 ranks 10 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 16 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.8-Max (0902) or Claude Opus 5?
Claude Opus 5 ranks 14 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 38 for Qwen3.8-Max (0902).
Run Qwen3.8-Max (0902) and Claude Opus 5 on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.