Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.5 27B

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 27B costs 4.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

41.9

Rank #127 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 38.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 80.5% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 47.9% for Qwen3.5 27B.
  • Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.40 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
  • Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.5 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
ProviderAnthropicAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index61.941.9
Released2026-09-282026-02-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$10$2.40
Results tracked3228

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena WebDev17741358
LMArena Coding15131427
ALE-Bench1,819349.45
FrontierCode52.1%—
CursorBench55.5%—
FrontierSWE61.9%—
SciCode61%—
WeirdML—39.5%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Qwen3.5 27B: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
APEX-Agents75.5%—
Vending-Bench 2—201.98

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
NYT Connections (extended)80.5%47.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts14951414
CritPt31.4%—
Thematic Generalization—45.5%
Mystery Game Puzzles65%—
DTBench—82.4%
LMCA—34%
Epoch Capabilities Index165.03—

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Math15101429
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)88.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 480.5%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56.7%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Expert15401428
GPQA Diamond95.6%—
SimpleQA Verified46.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—12.1%

Multimodal Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Vision12891241
Furniture Assembly75%—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Non-English14521390
LMArena Chinese15221478
LMArena Russian14511390
LMArena French—1410
LMArena German—1393
LMArena Japanese—1345
LMArena Korean—1358
LMArena Spanish—1407

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Instruction Following14951393

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Longer Query14981413

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Qwen3.5 27B
LMArena Text14711409
LMArena Creative Writing14651362
LMArena Multi-Turn14741410

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3.5 27B?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 27B costs 4.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.5 27B share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.

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