Compare / Alibaba vs Anthropic

AI labs compared · October 2026

Alibaba vs Anthropic: which AI lab is ahead?

Each lab's best model on sale goes head to head on every kind of work we measure, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. 43 models in all; a lab is only as good as the model you would actually pick from it.

27 models on sale with our resultsAlibaba Best: Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · newest: Qwen3.8-27B
16 models on sale with our resultsAnthropic Best: Claude Opus 5.5 · newest: Claude Haiku 5.5
Alibaba wins 0Anthropic wins 8

Kinds of work led by each lab's best model there, of the 8 both are measured on.

Results as of 8 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-08-4199ce0620fe). Models on sale means listed on OpenRouter today.

Alibaba or Anthropic? The short answer

Anthropic is ahead: its best models beat Alibaba's in all 8 kinds of work both are measured on.

  • Pick Anthropic for product listings, decks from an analysis, marketing planning, agents and tool use, professional work, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.
  • On our overall leaderboard, Claude Opus 5.5 is #1 (85 of 100) and Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is #12 (48).
  • Prices start at $0.11 per million tokens for Alibaba (Qwen3.5-9B) and $0.20 for Anthropic (Claude Haiku 5.5).

Head to head

48Qwen3.8-Max (0902)
Best Spring Prompt overall score
85Claude Opus 5.5
45.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902)
Best Intelligence Index
57.6Claude Opus 5.5
$3.00Qwen3.8-Max (0902)
Flagship price, per million tokens
$8.00Claude Opus 5.5
$0.11Qwen3.5-9B
Cheapest model, per million tokens
$0.20Claude Haiku 5.5
27
Models on sale with our results
16

Each line names the model behind the number. Prices are blended, three input tokens to one output, at the developer's list price where we have read it; see every model's price. Intelligence Index from Artificial Analysis; overall score from our leaderboard.

Which lab is better for what

For each kind of work, each lab's best model there and its rank among every model on sale. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live 17 of 20Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 6 of 20Claude Opus 5.5
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is 11 of 19Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 4 of 19Claude Sonnet 5.5
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled not measured 2 of 8Claude Opus 5.5
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending 14 of 19Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 4 of 19Claude Sonnet 5.5
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 7 of 164Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 1 of 164Claude Sonnet 5.5
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 18 of 51Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 1 of 51Claude Sonnet 5.5
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 17 of 198Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 1 of 198Claude Opus 5.5
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 16 of 188Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 1 of 188Claude Fable 5
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 6 of 152Qwen3-8B 2 of 152Claude Opus 5.5
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 15 of 22Claude Haiku 5.5

Every model, by intelligence and price

Each dot is a model on sale with an Intelligence Index from Artificial Analysis. Up is smarter; left is cheaper. Hover or tap a dot for its name.

AlibabaAnthropic

020406080 $0.1$1$10$100 Price per million tokens, blended (log scale) Intelligence Index Qwen3.8-Max (0902)Claude Opus 5.5Claude Fable 5.1Claude Sonnet 5.5Claude Opus 5Claude Fable 5

On our overall leaderboard

The 6 of their models we rank overall: one score out of 100 across everything we publish (how the score works). Only models with enough of our own results are ranked.

  1. #1Claude Opus 5.585
  2. #5Claude Fable 5.166
  3. #7Claude Sonnet 5.564
  4. #12Qwen3.8-Max (0902)48
  5. #13Claude Haiku 5.544
  6. #22Claude Haiku 4.57

Benchmark by benchmark

The headline result of every benchmark both labs have models on: each lab's best model and its rank among the models on sale. Green marks the better rank.

MeasureAlibabaAnthropic
Agents and tool use
τ²-bench · Task success (pass^1) · tau2 v1.0.1, retail% of tasks, higher is better 84.4%Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 1 of 679.6%Claude Opus 4.5 · 3 of 6
τ²-bench · Task success (pass^1) · tau2 v1.0.1, airline% of tasks, higher is better 81.5%Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 5 of 684.0%Claude Opus 4.5 · 1 of 6
τ²-bench · Task success (pass^1) · tau2 v1.0.1, telecom% of tasks, higher is better 97.8%Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 1 of 692.3%Claude Opus 4.5 · 2 of 6
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 · Overall accuracy · BFCL% correct, higher is better 52.2%Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 · 13 of 3877.5%Claude Opus 4.5 · 1 of 38
OpenHands Index · Average% resolved, higher is better 52.9%Qwen3.6-Plus · 16 of 3381.0%Claude Fable 5 · 1 of 33
Artificial Analysis · Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 38.9%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 11 of 10563.6%Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 1 of 105
Artificial Analysis · Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 88.8%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 5 of 11591.4%Claude Fable 5.1 · 1 of 115
Artificial Analysis · τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 48.0%Qwen3.8-27B · 5 of 11347.2%Claude Fable 5.1 · 7 of 113
Vending-Bench 2 · Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better $5,115Qwen3.6-Plus · 24 of 56$11,182Claude Opus 5 · 3 of 56
Decks from an analysis
DeckBench · Deck ratingrating, higher is better 1,100Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 11 of 191,352Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 4 of 19
Marketing planning
ROASBench · Overall scorescore out of 100, higher is better 25.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 14 of 1952.0Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 4 of 19
Product listings
CatalogBench · Reliably publish-ready% of products, higher is better 28.6%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 2055.4%Claude Opus 5.5 · 5 of 20
CatalogBench · Reliably publish-ready · sales brief% of products, higher is better 0.0%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 18 of 2021.4%Claude Opus 5.5 · 7 of 20
Professional work
APEX-Agents · Tasks passed% of tasks, higher is better 24.9%Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 36 of 3775.5%Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 1 of 37
GDP.pdf · Professional document tasks% of rubric, higher is better 23.2%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 3130.6%Claude Opus 5.5 · 2 of 31
Reasoning and knowledge
Artificial Analysis · Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 45.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 19857.6Claude Opus 5.5 · 1 of 198
Artificial Analysis · Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 43.1%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 23 of 19761.4%Claude Opus 5.5 · 1 of 197
Artificial Analysis · GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 92.8%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 15 of 18793.7%Claude Fable 5.1 · 8 of 187
Sticking to the facts
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 4.8%Qwen3-8B · 5 of 799.8%Claude Haiku 4.5 · 43 of 79
Arena (formerly LMArena) · Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 1,472Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 18 of 1131,507Claude Opus 5.5 · 1 of 113
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 55.8%Qwen3.7-Max · 18 of 7372.2%Claude Opus 5.5 · 4 of 73
Writing
Arena (formerly LMArena) · Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 1,482Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 17 of 1661,505Claude Opus 4.6 · 1 of 166
UGI Leaderboard · Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 58.2Qwen3.6-Plus · 38 of 13874.2Claude Fable 5 · 3 of 138

Their models, one against one

Quick answers

Is Alibaba or Anthropic better?

Anthropic is ahead: its best models beat Alibaba's in all 8 kinds of work both are measured on.

What is Alibaba's best model?

Qwen3.8-Max (0902): #12 on the Spring Prompt overall leaderboard and 45.4 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

What is Anthropic's best model?

Claude Opus 5.5: #1 on the Spring Prompt overall leaderboard and 57.6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Alibaba or Anthropic?

Anthropic: its best model there, Claude Sonnet 5.5, ranks 1 of 164 models on sale, against 7 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max (0902).

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Alibaba or Anthropic?

Anthropic: its best model there, Claude Opus 5.5, ranks 1 of 198 models on sale, against 17 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max (0902).

Which is better for writing, Alibaba or Anthropic?

Anthropic: its best model there, Claude Fable 5, ranks 1 of 188 models on sale, against 16 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max (0902).

Which is cheaper, Alibaba or Anthropic?

Alibaba's cheapest model with results, Qwen3.5-9B, costs $0.11 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.20 for Claude Haiku 5.5 from Anthropic.

Other labs compared

Which model is best for your product?

Benchmarks aren't your data. We test the models from Alibaba, Anthropic and the rest on your own tasks, with the cost of every answer.

Talk to usSee the leaderboard