Claude Opus 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Wins 5 of 8 areas
Coding · Reasoning · Facts · Math · Long documents
Wins 2 of 8 areas
Images and charts · Following instructions
Claude Opus 4.5 is the stronger all-rounder.Qwen3.5 397B A17B is cheaper and better at images and charts.
Scores updated · 47 tests both models report · How we compare
Where each one wins
Tests won in each of the eight areas we test. Each piece is one test, so a longer bar means more evidence; grey means the two scored within a point of each other.
- CodingWriting and fixing software61Claude Opus 4.56 of 7 tests
- FactsGetting facts right instead of making them up30Claude Opus 4.53 of 3 tests
- MathCompetition and research-level math31Claude Opus 4.53 of 4 tests
- ReasoningHard problems that need careful thinking21Claude Opus 4.52 of 3 tests
- Long documentsFinding answers in very long texts10Claude Opus 4.51 of 2 tests · 1 tie
- Images and chartsUnderstanding pictures, charts and video02Qwen3.5 397B A17B2 of 2 tests
- Following instructionsDoing exactly what it is asked02Qwen3.5 397B A17B2 of 2 tests
- AgentsCarrying out multi-step tasks on its own11Even1 each
What it costs
Prices per million tokens, roughly 750,000 words. The bars show the cost of a million tokens read plus a million written.
Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs 86% less for the same work.
The biggest differences
The three tests each model wins by the widest margin. Scores are out of 100.
Where Claude Opus 4.5 pulls ahead
- Real work tasks from 44 professionsGDPVal+32.5points ahead
- Avoids making up answers it doesn't knowAA-Omniscience · Non-hallucination+27.9points ahead
- Short factual questions, answered correctlySimpleQA Verified+19.7points ahead
Where Qwen3.5 397B A17B pulls ahead
- Fixes real GitHub issues in many programming languagesSWE-bench Multilingual+62.3points ahead
- Finds hard-to-locate facts by browsing the webBrowseComp+32points ahead
- Follows unfamiliar, precisely checkable instructionsIFBench+20.8points ahead
Every test, side by side
All 47 tests both models report. The winning score is in its model's colour; marks a score checked independently.
CodingClaude Opus 4.5
- SWE-bench MultilingualQwen3.5 397B A17B by 62.3769.3+62.3
- LMArena · WebDevClaude Opus 4.5 by 69 rating points14681399+69 rating
- Terminal-Bench HardClaude Opus 4.5 by 6.14740.9+6.1
- SciCodeClaude Opus 4.5 by 4.749.544.8+4.7
- SWE-bench VerifiedClaude Opus 4.5 by 4.580.976.4+4.5
- LiveCodeBench v6Claude Opus 4.5 by 1.284.883.6+1.2
- SWE-bench ProClaude Opus 4.5 by 1.15250.9+1.1
AgentsEven
- GDPValClaude Opus 4.5 by 32.547.314.8+32.5
- BrowseCompQwen3.5 397B A17B by 323769+32
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.5
- CritPtClaude Opus 4.5 by 2.94.61.7+2.9
- GPQA DiamondQwen3.5 397B A17B by 2.786.689.3+2.7
- Humanity's Last ExamClaude Opus 4.5 by 1.130.129+1.1
FactsClaude Opus 4.5
- AA-Omniscience · Non-hallucinationClaude Opus 4.5 by 27.93911.1+27.9
- SimpleQA VerifiedClaude Opus 4.5 by 19.745.726+19.7
- AA-Omniscience · AccuracyClaude Opus 4.5 by 15.846.630.8+15.8
Images and chartsQwen3.5 397B A17B
MathClaude Opus 4.5
- AIME 2026Claude Opus 4.5 by 3.895.191.3+3.8
- FrontierMath Tiers 1-3 (v2)Claude Opus 4.5 by 3.234.431.2+3.2
- IMOAnswerBenchClaude Opus 4.5 by 3.18480.9+3.1
- HMMT Feb. 2026Qwen3.5 397B A17B by 2.685.387.9+2.6
Long documentsClaude Opus 4.5
- LongBench v2Claude Opus 4.5 by 1.264.463.2+1.2
- AA-LCRtie77.377.3tie
Following instructionsQwen3.5 397B A17B
- IFBenchQwen3.5 397B A17B by 20.85878.8+20.8
- Multi-ChallengeQwen3.5 397B A17B by 8.65967.6+8.6
Other results22 tests, not counted
Tests outside the eight areas. They are not counted above: several are summary scores built from other tests, or the same test under another name.
- AA Agentic IndexClaude Opus 4.5 by 4959.610.6+49
- AA-OmniscienceClaude Opus 4.5 by 44.714-30.8+44.7
- QwenWebBenchClaude Opus 4.5 by 350 rating points15361186+350 rating
- BrowseComp (context management)Qwen3.5 397B A17B by 20.857.878.6+20.8
- SkillsBench Avg5Claude Opus 4.5 by 15.345.330+15.3
- NL2RepoClaude Opus 4.5 by 1143.232.2+11
- AA IntelligenceClaude Opus 4.5 by 10.729.118.4+10.7
- Terminal-Bench 2.0Claude Opus 4.5 by 6.859.352.5+6.8
- τ²-Bench Telecom (AA run)Qwen3.5 397B A17B by 6.189.595.6+6.1
- Claw-Eval AvgClaude Opus 4.5 by 5.976.670.7+5.9
- ToolathlonClaude Opus 4.5 by 5.243.538.3+5.2
- HLE (with tools)Qwen3.5 397B A17B by 5.143.248.3+5.1
- MMMLUClaude Opus 4.5 by 2.390.888.5+2.3
- HMMT Feb. 2025Qwen3.5 397B A17B by 1.992.994.8+1.9
- MMLU-ProClaude Opus 4.5 by 1.789.587.8+1.7
- C-Evaltie92.293tie
- Seal-0tie47.746.9tie
- MMLU-Reduxtie95.694.9tie
- HMMT Nov. 2025tie93.392.7tie
- QwenClawBenchtie52.351.8tie
- Artificial Analysis Coding Indextie47.848.2tie
- SuperGPQAtie70.670.4tie
Questions people ask
Which is better, Claude Opus 4.5 or Qwen3.5 397B A17B?
Claude Opus 4.5 wins five of the eight areas we test: coding, reasoning, facts, math and long documents. Qwen3.5 397B A17B wins images and charts and following instructions, and costs 86% less. They are level on agents.
Which is better for coding?
Claude Opus 4.5. It wins 6 of the 7 coding tests both models report; Qwen3.5 397B A17B wins 1.
Which is cheaper?
Claude Opus 4.5 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs $0.60 and $3.60. That makes Qwen3.5 397B A17B about 86% cheaper for the same work.
How do you compare the two?
We use the 47 benchmark tests both models have published scores on. The verdict counts the 25 tests in the eight capability areas, and a gap under one point (ten on rating-style scales) counts as a tie. The other 22 are listed but not counted, because several are summary scores or repeat a test. Each score is the one shown on the model's own page.