Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 8B
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 33.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 128K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 16 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 61% | 22.6% |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 31.4% | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 56.1% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 56.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3 8B?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 33.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 8B share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.