Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 27B

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 42.2 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 27B costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 7 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 27B

Alibaba (Qwen)

42.2

Rank #117 Confirmed

Summary

They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 48.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Mystery Game Puzzles: 65% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 7% for Qwen3.6 27B.
Qwen3.6 27B is cheaper at $0.60 / $3.60 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Qwen3.6 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.6 27B specifications
	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
Provider	Anthropic	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	61.9	42.2
Released	2026-09-28	2026-04-22
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	128K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$2	$0.60
Output $ / M tokens	$10	$3.60
Results tracked	32	11

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
SciCode	61%	37.3%
FrontierCode	52.1%	—
CursorBench	55.5%	—
LMArena WebDev	1774	—
FrontierSWE	61.9%	—
LMArena Coding	1513	—
ALE-Bench	1,819	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
APEX-Agents	75.5%	—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
CritPt	31.4%	0.9%
Mystery Game Puzzles	65%	7%
Epoch Capabilities Index	165.03	146.5
NYT Connections (extended)	80.5%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	22%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1495	—
DTBench	—	78.1%
LMCA	—	34.5%

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	88.8%	35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	100%	91.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4	80.5%	—
ProofBench	100%	—
LMArena Math	1510	—
FrontierMath Erdős	2.9%	—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
GPQA Diamond	95.6%	85.9%
SimpleQA Verified	46.5%	—
LMArena Expert	1540	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Vision	1289	—
Furniture Assembly	75%	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Non-English	1452	—
LMArena Chinese	1522	—
LMArena Russian	1451	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Instruction Following	1495	—

Long Context Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Qwen3.6 27B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Longer Query	1498	—

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Text	1471	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1465	—
EQ-Bench 4	—	1026
LMArena Multi-Turn	1474	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.60 per million input tokens and $3.60 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 39.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.6 27B share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.