Model comparison
Claude Fable 5.1 vs Qwen3 Max
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 43.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 8.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Fable 5.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3 Max in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Fable 5.1 leads 76.7 to 22.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 90.2% for Claude Fable 5.1 and 18.9% for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $10 / $50 for Claude Fable 5.1.
- Claude Fable 5.1 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 69.0 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2026-09-01 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $10 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $50 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 52 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 74.7 (#1), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1528 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 2,143 | 370.45 |
| FrontierCode | 50.9% | — |
| CursorBench | 51.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1744 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 56.3% | — |
| SciCode | 63.1% | — |
| GSO | 88.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 92.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 73.3% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 50.7 (#5), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,422 | 71.56 |
| APEX-Agents | 68.6% | — |
| Remote Labor Index | 17.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 29.6% | — |
Reasoning Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 76.7 (#7), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 90% | 30.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 47% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1526 | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 58% | 5% |
| DTBench | 97.6% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 65.5% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 164.7 | 142.38 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 90% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 97.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.1% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 57.1% | — |
Math Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 89.6 (#4), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 90.2% | 18.9% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1525 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 87.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 0% | — |
Knowledge Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 69.6 (#6), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleQA Verified | 70.8% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1535 | 1455 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 72.6% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 46.5% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Fable 5.1: 53.9 (#4), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1318 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 41.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 70% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1513 | — |
Multilingual Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 59.1 (#3), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1586 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1525 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1500 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1543 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1534 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1521 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1516 | 1462 |
Instruction Following Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#6), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1517 | 1419 |
Long Context Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 46.7 (#20), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1522 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Claude Fable 5.1 leads
Claude Fable 5.1: 79.2 (#2), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1510 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1507 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1492 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2162 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Qwen3 Max?
Claude Fable 5.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 69.0 to 43.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 Max costs 8.3× 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 Max?
Qwen3 Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.20 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; Claude Fable 5.1 lists at $10 and $50.
Is Claude Fable 5.1 or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 74.7 versus 43.0 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 Max share?
28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Fable 5.1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.