Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 34.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Coder Next costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3 Coder Next in 0 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 22.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 66.1% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 34.4% for Qwen3 Coder Next.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is cheaper at $0.12 / $0.80 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3 Coder Next has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 34.3 |
| Released | 2026-02-17 | 2026-02-02 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $3 | $0.12 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $15 | $0.80 |
| Results tracked | 57 | 3 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Qwen3 Coder Next: 36.3 (#210)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 46.8% | 32.3% |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | 34.4% |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2% | — |
| DeepSWE | 29.9% | — |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1504 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,327 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,204 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Qwen3 Coder Next: 22.4 (#196)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 3.1% | 0% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 86.5% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 76.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1484 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 16% | — |
| DTBench | 89.9% | — |
| LMCA | 46.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.24 | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |
Math Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 85.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 45% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1462 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.6% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1500 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1491 | — |
| LMArena French | 1465 | — |
| LMArena German | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1440 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1475 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Qwen3 Coder Next: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1810 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1464 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Qwen3 Coder Next?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 34.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Coder Next costs 21× 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 Qwen3 Coder Next?
Qwen3 Coder Next is cheaper. It lists at $0.12 per million input tokens and $0.80 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3 Coder Next better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 36.3 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 Coder Next share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Coder Next has 3.