Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Qwen3 Max

Claude Opus 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 58.2 to 43.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 4.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 31 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.6 Anthropic

58.2

Rank #20 Confirmed

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.7

Rank #87 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 31 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3 Max in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 4.6 leads 57.8 to 22.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 92.1% for Claude Opus 4.6 and 30.1% for Qwen3 Max.
  • Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.6.
  • Claude Opus 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index58.243.7
Released2026-02-042025-09-23
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$5$1.20
Output $ / M tokens$25$6
Results tracked6833

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 57.2 (#20), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
LMArena Coding15361456
ALE-Bench996.5370.45
SWE-bench Verified78.7%—
FrontierCode26.6%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.6%—
LMArena WebDev1547—
SWE-bench Multilingual72%—
GSO41.2%—
WeirdML78%—
AlgoTune1.47—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.6: 51.1 (#4), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
Vending-Bench 28,01871.56
Terminal-Bench79.8%—
APEX-Agents46.3%—
Remote Labor Index4.2%—
τ²-bench Banking27.3%—
Cybench93%—
DeepResearch Bench55.3%—
GBAEval44.1%—
LMArena Search1253—
METR Time Horizons78.9%—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 57.8 (#23), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
Kagi LLM Benchmark83.6%72.5%
NYT Connections (extended)92.1%30.1%
Chess Puzzles17%4%
LMArena Hard Prompts15271448
Mystery Game Puzzles25%5%
DTBench91.2%82.1%
LMCA55.8%28.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index155.24142.38
ARC-AGI-269.2%—
SimpleBench67.6%—
ARC-AGI-194%—
EnigmaEval7.6%—
Thematic Generalization80.6%—
EBR-Bench12.7%—
ForecastBench60—

Math Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 63.0 (#31), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)66%18.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.4%73.3%
LMArena Math15191446
FrontierMath Tier 426.8%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions78.5%—
ProofBench50%—
MATH Level 5—97.1%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)40.7%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)22.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 61.9 (#26), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
GPQA Diamond90.5%72.6%
SimpleQA Verified47%48.7%
LMArena Expert15461455
Humanity's Last Exam34.4%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate12.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.6: 37.3 (#74), Qwen3 Max: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
LMArena Vision1316—
Furniture Assembly28.3%—
LMArena Document1507—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 57.9 (#6), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English14891429
LMArena Chinese15511478
LMArena French15131449
LMArena German15021463
LMArena Japanese14841397
LMArena Korean14641399
LMArena Russian14971428
LMArena Spanish15101462

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 79.5 (#4), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following15231419

Long Context Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 48.1 (#13), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
CL-bench20.7%14.5%
LMArena Longer Query15201438
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench Life17%—

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.6 leads

Claude Opus 4.6: 73.5 (#10), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Qwen3 Max
LMArena Text15031439
LMArena Creative Writing15051402
LMArena Multi-Turn15131446
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1809—
EQ-Bench 41223—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.6 better than Qwen3 Max?

Claude Opus 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 58.2 to 43.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 4.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.20 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.6 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.6 or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 57.2 versus 43.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.6 and Qwen3 Max share?

31 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.6 has 68 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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