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Claude Opus 4.6vs.Qwen 3.8 27B

Which one is better?

Level in the overall index: the gap is too small for a clear winner. Qwen 3.8 27B is cheaper: Claude Opus 4.6 costs 125 times (input) and 10 times (output) as much per token.

IntelligenceOverall index, 0 to 100 · higher is better
13

Claude Opus 4.6

Rank 43 to 60

11

Qwen 3.8 27B

Rank 44 to 57

SpeedTokens per second · higher is better
45

Claude Opus 4.6

slow

40

Qwen 3.8 27B

slow

PriceDollars per 1M tokens · lower is better
$10

Claude Opus 4.6

expensive

$0.66

Qwen 3.8 27B

fairly cheap

Claude Opus 4.6

Subscription

At Anthropic from €21.42 a month (Claude Pro). Through other providers from ≈ €6.36 a month (ElevenLabs Starter, with limited credits). 50 plans in Germany.

Via API

$5 input, $25 output per 1M tokens, unchanged since our price tracking began on Aug 14, 2026.

Note
There is a successor: Claude Opus 4.7 (rank 30 to 42, same price).

Qwen 3.8 27B

Subscription

No Alibaba subscription includes this model. Through other providers from ≈ €1.06 a month (Command Code Go, with limited credits). 10 plans in Germany.

Via API

$0.04 input, $2.50 output per 1M tokens according to the provider; the price index has listed it at $0.42 and $3 since Oct 27, 2026.

Overall index with data through Oct 29, 2026 · Prices from Oct 29, 2026 · Speed: measured by Artificial Analysis · Subscriptions as of Oct 24, 2026 · Subscription prices incl. VAT

Where is the difference?

Values from 0 to 100 per task area. We only name a winner when the gap is large enough and there are enough tests.

Opus 4.6 ahead: 1Qwen 3.8 27B ahead: 0level: 2too little data: 7of 10 areas

Opus 4.6Qwen 3.8 27B0 to 100, higher is better
Areas in the overall index
Codingtoo little dataOpus 4.6: 17Qwen 3.8 27B: 13
ReasoninglevelOpus 4.6: 14Qwen 3.8 27B: 6
Mathematicsonly Qwen 3.8 27B has a scoreOpus 4.6: not enough dataQwen 3.8 27B: 8
Knowledgeonly Qwen 3.8 27B has a scoreOpus 4.6: not enough dataQwen 3.8 27B: 5
Agentstoo little dataOpus 4.6: 19Qwen 3.8 27B: 21
Generalonly Opus 4.6 has a scoreOpus 4.6: 2Qwen 3.8 27B: not enough data
MultimodallevelOpus 4.6: 6Qwen 3.8 27B: 13
Specialist fields
Financetoo little dataOpus 4.6: 28Qwen 3.8 27B: 34
Legaltoo little dataOpus 4.6: 29Qwen 3.8 27B: 23
HealthOpus 4.6 aheadOpus 4.6: 35Qwen 3.8 27B: 3
Show 3 more areas that do not count toward the overall index
Opus 4.6Qwen 3.8 27B0 to 100, higher is better
Cybersecurityonly Qwen 3.8 27B has a scoreOpus 4.6: not enough dataQwen 3.8 27B: 19
Productivityonly Opus 4.6 has a scoreOpus 4.6: 2Qwen 3.8 27B: not enough data
Educationonly Opus 4.6 has a scoreOpus 4.6: 8Qwen 3.8 27B: not enough data

See for yourself: same task, one attempt

SVG short test

One SVG task with the same fixed settings for every model, without hidden thinking.

Shared test round: 43b8c5c46830

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6: SVG short test
Test run: Oct 14, 2026 · anthropic
Test detailsAPI reports 0 reasoning tokensAPI model: anthropic/claude-opus-4.6766 output tokens

Qwen 3.8 27B

Qwen 3.8 27B: SVG short test
Test run: Oct 14, 2026 · alibaba
Test detailsAPI reports 0 reasoning tokensAPI model: qwen/qwen3.8-27b865 output tokens
Earlier tests

Pelican on a bicycle

A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.

Claude Opus 4.6

Claude Opus 4.6: Pelican on a bicycle
A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.

Reasoning (requested): high

Current attempt
Run date
Oct 1, 2026
API provider
openrouter
Requested API model
anthropic/claude-opus-4.6
API model reported in response
anthropic/claude-opus-4.6
Reasoning setting
high
Pinned endpoint
Anthropic | anthropic/claude-4.6-opus-20260205
Temperature
Provider default
Token limit including reasoning
8,192 tokens
Test protocol
community-visual-tests-v1
Technical checks
Passed, not a quality rating
Response time
85.1 s

Visually reviewed. This individual test does not establish overall model quality.

Qwen 3.8 27B

Not tested yet

Prompt and test conditions

Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle

Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens

Task origin (Simon Willison)

All data side by side

The better value is bold. For the overall index only when the gap is clear.

MetricClaude Opus 4.6Qwen 3.8 27B
Intelligence
Overall index0 to 100, higher is better1311
RankRank 43 to 60 of 95Rank 44 to 57 of 95
Price per 1M tokens
Inputwhat you send$5$0.04
Outputwhat the model writes$25$2.50
Speed
Tokens per second4540
Technical
Context windowhow much text the model reads at once1 M tokens≈ 1,500 A4 pages262,144 tokens≈ 390 A4 pages
Knowledge cutoffMay 2025n/a
ReleasedFebruary 2026Aug 14, 2026
AvailabilityActiveActive
Open weightsnoyes

Prices without caching or batch discounts · Page count as a rule of thumb from Artificial Analysis

Shared benchmarks

Single results from the same benchmark version, task and metric. A value is bold only with the same test setup and a clear gap.

A: Claude Opus 4.6B: Qwen 3.8 27B

MedCodeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalClaude Opus 4.6: 48.2%Qwen 3.8 27B: 28.7%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
MedScribeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalClaude Opus 4.6: 86.7%Qwen 3.8 27B: 83.8%Vals AIAs of 10/13/2026
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Overall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalClaude Opus 4.6: 57.6%Qwen 3.8 27B: 64.9%Vals AIAs of 10/26/2026

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