Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 27B

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 42.2 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 27B costs 5.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.2

Rank #117 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 25.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Mystery Game Puzzles: 71% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 7% for Qwen3.6 27B.
  • Qwen3.6 27B is cheaper at $0.60 / $3.60 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.6 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index68.642.2
Released2026-09-222026-04-22
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.60
Output $ / M tokens$20$3.60
Results tracked4411

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
SciCode66.9%37.3%
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1813—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
LMArena Coding1547—
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
CritPt31.7%0.9%
Mystery Game Puzzles71%7%
DTBench98.9%78.1%
LMCA68.2%34.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33146.5
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
Chess Puzzles—22%
EBR-Bench71.4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1535—

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%35.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%91.1%
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math1506—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
GPQA Diamond90.6%85.9%
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—
LMArena Expert1547—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Non-English1507—
LMArena Chinese1588—
LMArena French1514—
LMArena Russian1520—
LMArena Spanish1507—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Instruction Following1537—

Long Context Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Qwen3.6 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Longer Query1532—

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 27B
LMArena Text1515—
LMArena Creative Writing1533—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—
EQ-Bench 4—1026
LMArena Multi-Turn1499—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 42.2 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 27B costs 5.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.60 per million input tokens and $3.60 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 39.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3.6 27B share?

9 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.

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