Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen Max

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Max costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

Qwen Max Alibaba (Qwen)

34.7

Rank #230 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 Sonnet 4.6 leads 52.9 to 22.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 85.8% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 16.1% for Qwen Max.
  • Qwen Max is cheaper at $1.60 / $6.40 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index50.334.7
Released2026-02-172024-04-03
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M33K
Max output128K8K
Input $ / M tokens$3$1.60
Output $ / M tokens$15$6.40
Results tracked5723

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Coding15041288
SWE-bench Verified75.2%—
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
Aider Polyglot—21.8%
LMArena WebDev1522—
SciCode46.8%—
WeirdML66.1%—
ALE-Bench1,327—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Qwen Max: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
Terminal-Bench53.4%—
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
DeepResearch Bench54.9%—
OSWorld72.1%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—
Vending-Bench 27,204—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Hard Prompts14841269
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%—
ARC-AGI-186.5%—
CritPt3.1%—
Chess Puzzles13%—
Thematic Generalization76.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—
DTBench89.9%—
LMCA46.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24—
ForecastBench62—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%16.1%
LMArena Math14621275
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%1%
ProofBench45%—
MATH Level 5—67.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
GPQA Diamond87.4%56.1%
LMArena Expert15001248
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Qwen Max: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Non-English14401263
LMArena Chinese14911254
LMArena French14651330
LMArena German14281254
LMArena Japanese14201205
LMArena Korean14111142
LMArena Russian14401274
LMArena Spanish14641290

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Instruction Following14751262

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Longer Query14791288
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Qwen Max
LMArena Text14581282
LMArena Creative Writing14351248
LMArena Multi-Turn14641277
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1810—
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Qwen Max?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Max costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen Max?

Qwen Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.60 per million input tokens and $6.40 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen Max better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Qwen Max share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.

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