Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 10 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

37.6

Rank #201 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 10 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 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 Opus 5.5 leads 91.8 to 38.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 91.2% for Claude Opus 5.5 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 $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index68.637.6
Released2026-09-222026-04-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$20$1.49
Results tracked4414

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
SciCode66.9%35.8%
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1813—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
WeirdML—34.5%
LMArena Coding1547—
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench—23%
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 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%41.6%
CritPt31.7%0.3%
Mystery Game Puzzles71%22%
DTBench98.9%73.9%
LMCA68.2%29.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33143.93
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
Chess Puzzles—26%
EBR-Bench71.4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1535—
Surface Evolver Bench—44.4%

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%20.4%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%86.7%
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math1506—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond90.6%84.8%
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—
LMArena Expert1547—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Vision1321—
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English1507—
LMArena Chinese1588—
LMArena French1514—
LMArena Russian1520—
LMArena Spanish1507—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following1537—

Long Context Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Longer Query1532—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Text1515—
LMArena Creative Writing1533—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—
LMArena Multi-Turn1499—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B costs 14× 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 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 Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 37.2 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 35B-A3B share?

10 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.

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