Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen3.5 27B

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 27B costs 12× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

41.9

Rank #127 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 9 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 78.4 to 38.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 82.9% for Claude Opus 4.8 and 39.5% for Qwen3.5 27B.
  • Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.40 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.5 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen3.5 27B specifications
Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index60.741.9
Released2026-05-282026-02-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$5$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$25$2.40
Results tracked6528

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena WebDev15561358
WeirdML82.9%39.5%
LMArena Coding14901427
ALE-Bench1,564349.45
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
SciCode53.5%—
GSO47.1%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), Qwen3.5 27B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
Vending-Bench 25,787201.98
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—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%47.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts14821414
DTBench94.9%82.4%
LMCA57.5%34%
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
CritPt20.9%—
Chess Puzzles34%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
Thematic Generalization—45.5%
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
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), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Expert15021428
GPQA Diamond91%—
SimpleQA Verified53%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—12.1%

Multimodal Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Vision12941241
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Non-English14501390
LMArena Chinese15071478
LMArena French14811410
LMArena German14721393
LMArena Japanese14401345
LMArena Korean14321358
LMArena Russian14741390
LMArena Spanish14661407

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Instruction Following14761393

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Longer Query14831413

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Text14611409
LMArena Creative Writing14541362
LMArena Multi-Turn14761410
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840—
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Qwen3.5 27B?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 27B costs 12× 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 Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Qwen3.5 27B share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.

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