Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3.8 Max

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 56.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.8 Max costs 2.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 33 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

56.8

Rank #22 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 33 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 80.2 to 54.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Furniture Assembly: 83.3% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 20% for Qwen3.8 Max.
  • Qwen3.8 Max is cheaper at $2 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index68.656.8
Released2026-09-222026-08-02
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M1M
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$4$2
Output $ / M tokens$20$6
Results tracked4439

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena WebDev18131674
FrontierSWE62.3%17.8%
SciCode66.9%53.2%
LMArena Coding15471502
DeepSWE—57.5%
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench2,147—

Agentic & Tool Use Too close to call

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
APEX-Agents73.5%63.3%
GDP.pdf30.6%23.2%
τ²-bench Banking—55.1%
Vending-Bench 29,235—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%88.3%
CritPt31.7%20%
LMArena Hard Prompts15351496
Mystery Game Puzzles71%38%
DTBench98.9%92%
LMCA68.2%46.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33156.41
ARC-AGI-293.3%—
ARC-AGI-198.5%—
Chess Puzzles—40%
EBR-Bench71.4%—

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%74.7%
FrontierMath Tier 495%46.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%100%
ProofBench100%58%
LMArena Math15061499
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
GPQA Diamond90.6%92.7%
SimpleQA Verified72.2%47.3%
LMArena Expert15471507

Multimodal Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Vision13211314
Furniture Assembly83.3%20%
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Non-English15071472
LMArena Chinese15881538
LMArena French15141503
LMArena Russian15201481
LMArena Spanish15071492
LMArena German—1483
LMArena Japanese—1467
LMArena Korean—1461

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Instruction Following15371479

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Longer Query15321489

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Text15151483
LMArena Creative Writing15331479
LMArena Multi-Turn14991489
EQ-Bench Creative Writing2050—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 56.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.8 Max costs 2.7× 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 Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max is cheaper. It lists at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 53.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3.8 Max share?

33 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.

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