Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 50.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 3 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 70.2 to 63.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SimpleQA Verified: 35.5% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 52% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper at $1.30 / $7.80 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2026-02-17 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $3 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $15 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 57 | 29 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2% | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | 1482 |
| LMArena Coding | 1504 | 1471 |
| DeepSWE | 29.9% | — |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | — |
| SciCode | 46.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,327 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,204 | 4,254 |
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | — |
| APEX-Agents | 43% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | — |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | — |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 48.8% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1221 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.9% | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1484 | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 16% | 19% |
| DTBench | 89.9% | 87.2% |
| LMCA | 46.5% | 42.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.24 | 149.24 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 86.5% | — |
| CritPt | 3.1% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 76.3% | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 85.8% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1462 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | 4.2% |
| ProofBench | 45% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | 1500 | 1478 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.6% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1491 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1465 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1440 | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1475 | 1438 |
Long Context Too close to call
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1464 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1810 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 50.3 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 46.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.