Model comparison
Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Sonar
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 2.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)
PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 41.7 to 21.1.
- Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 51.5 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 128K |
| Max output | 66K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.30 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $7.80 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 29 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1482 | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1471 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —, Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,254 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleBench | 63% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 74.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 20% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1457 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| DTBench | 87.2% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 42.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 149.24 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 91.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1465 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 23.1% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 52% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1478 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1437 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1487 | — |
| LMArena French | 1449 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1445 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1454 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1438 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1457 | — |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1447 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.6 Max Preview better than Sonar?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 2.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Sonar?
Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Sonar better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3.6 Max Preview and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.