Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen Max

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Max costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

Qwen Max Alibaba (Qwen)

34.7

Rank #230 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen Max in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 78.4 to 22.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 98.3% for Claude Opus 4.8 and 16.1% for Qwen Max.
  • Qwen Max is cheaper at $1.60 / $6.40 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen Max specifications
Claude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index60.734.7
Released2026-05-282024-04-03
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M33K
Max output128K8K
Input $ / M tokens$5$1.60
Output $ / M tokens$25$6.40
Results tracked6523

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Coding14901288
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
Aider Polyglot—21.8%
LMArena WebDev1556—
SciCode53.5%—
GSO47.1%—
WeirdML82.9%—
ALE-Bench1,564—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), Qwen Max: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
APEX-Agents48.9%—
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—
Vending-Bench 25,787—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Hard Prompts14821269
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
CritPt20.9%—
Chess Puzzles34%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
DTBench94.9%—
LMCA57.5%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index158.21—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.4 (#13), Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
GPQA Diamond91%56.1%
LMArena Expert15021248
SimpleQA Verified53%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), Qwen Max: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Vision1294—
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Non-English14501263
LMArena Chinese15071254
LMArena French14811330
LMArena German14721254
LMArena Japanese14401205
LMArena Korean14321142
LMArena Russian14741274
LMArena Spanish14661290

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Instruction Following14761262

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Longer Query14831288
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen Max
LMArena Text14611282
LMArena Creative Writing14541248
LMArena Multi-Turn14761277
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840—
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Qwen Max?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Max costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen Max?

Qwen Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.60 per million input tokens and $6.40 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen Max better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen Max share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.

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