Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 47.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Plus costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 32 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 32 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 49.1 to 29.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 65.6% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 38.2% for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.6 Plus is cheaper at $0.50 / $3 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 54.6 | 47.5 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1541 | 1461 |
| SciCode | 54.3% | 40.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | 1467 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | 670.15 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | 5,115 |
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | 60.3% |
| CritPt | 16.9% | 2.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | 1449 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | 12% |
| DTBench | 92.5% | 81.9% |
| LMCA | 50% | 33.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.21 | 147.65 |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| 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), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | 38.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | 93.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1467 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | — |
| ProofBench | 77% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Too close to call
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | 44.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1490 | 1454 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1274 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | 1477 |
| LMArena French | 1460 | 1455 |
| LMArena German | 1440 | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1437 | 1432 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1452 | 1425 |
Long Context Too close to call
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | 1439 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1442 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | 1404 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | 1438 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 47.5 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 Plus costs 3.6× 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 Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $3 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 40.8 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
32 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.