Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.5-9B
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 36× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.2 to 34.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 94.7% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
- Claude Sonnet 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 54.6 | 33.8 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 54.3% | 27.5% |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1541 | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 16.9% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | 12% |
| DTBench | 92.5% | 71.2% |
| LMCA | 50% | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.21 | 139.46 |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | 61.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| ProofBench | 77% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1467 | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | 79% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1490 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1274 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | — |
| LMArena French | 1460 | — |
| LMArena German | 1440 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1437 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1452 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1442 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 36× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5-9B?
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.5-9B share?
8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.