Model comparison
Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 51.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs 2.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 24 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 41.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Mystery Game Puzzles: 71% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 19% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper at $1.30 / $7.80 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
- Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 68.6 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2026-09-22 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $4 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $20 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 44 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1813 | 1482 |
| LMArena Coding | 1547 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| FrontierCode | 54.6% | — |
| CursorBench | 57.8% | — |
| FrontierSWE | 62.3% | — |
| SciCode | 66.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 77.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,147 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,235 | 4,254 |
| APEX-Agents | 73.5% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 30.6% | — |
Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 88.5% | 74.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1535 | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 71% | 19% |
| DTBench | 98.9% | 87.2% |
| LMCA | 68.2% | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 167.33 | 149.24 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 93.3% | — |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 98.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 20% |
| EBR-Bench | 71.4% | — |
Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1506 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 91.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 95% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.6% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 72.2% | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | 1547 | 1478 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1321 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 51.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 83.3% | — |
Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1588 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1514 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1520 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1507 | 1454 |
Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1537 | 1438 |
Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1532 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads
Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1515 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1533 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1499 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2050 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 51.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs 2.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1.30 per million input tokens and $7.80 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 48.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
24 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.