Model comparison
Claude Fable 5.1 vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 36× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Fable 5.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Fable 5.1 leads 89.6 to 38.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 90.2% for Claude Fable 5.1 and 20.4% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.49 per million input/output tokens, against $10 / $50 for Claude Fable 5.1.
- Claude Fable 5.1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 69.0 | 37.6 |
| Released | 2026-09-01 | 2026-04-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $50 | $1.49 |
| Results tracked | 52 | 14 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 74.7 (#1), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 63.1% | 35.8% |
| WeirdML | 92.9% | 34.5% |
| FrontierCode | 50.9% | — |
| CursorBench | 51.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1744 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 56.3% | — |
| GSO | 88.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1528 | — |
| MirrorCode | 73.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,143 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 50.7 (#5), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 23% |
| APEX-Agents | 68.6% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 17.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 29.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,422 | — |
Reasoning Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 76.7 (#7), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 90% | 41.6% |
| CritPt | 31.1% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 47% | 26% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 58% | 22% |
| DTBench | 97.6% | 73.9% |
| LMCA | 65.5% | 29.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 164.7 | 143.93 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 90% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 97.5% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 57.1% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1526 | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 44.4% |
Math Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 89.6 (#4), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 90.2% | 20.4% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 86.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 87.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1525 | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 0% | — |
Knowledge Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 69.6 (#6), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 84.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 46.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 70.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1535 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 53.9 (#4), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1318 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 41.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 70% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1513 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 59.1 (#3), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1586 | — |
| LMArena French | 1525 | — |
| LMArena German | 1500 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1543 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1534 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1521 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1516 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#6), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1517 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 46.7 (#20), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1522 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#2), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1510 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1507 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2162 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1492 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 36× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Fable 5.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.1 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.49 per million output tokens; Claude Fable 5.1 lists at $10 and $50.
Is Claude Fable 5.1 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?
Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 74.7 versus 37.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Fable 5.1 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Fable 5.1 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Fable 5.1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.