Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 8B

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 5 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 34.9.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 8B specifications
	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
Provider	Anthropic	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	61.9	33.7
Released	2026-09-28	2025-04
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1M	131K
Max output	128K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$2	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$10	$0.70
Results tracked	32	11

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	61%	22.6%
FrontierCode	52.1%	—
CursorBench	55.5%	—
LMArena WebDev	1774	—
FrontierSWE	61.9%	—
LMArena Coding	1513	—
ALE-Bench	1,819	—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
APEX-Agents	75.5%	—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
CritPt	31.4%	0%
Epoch Capabilities Index	165.03	136.17
NYT Connections (extended)	80.5%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1495	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	65%	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	100%	56.1%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	88.8%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	80.5%	—
ProofBench	100%	—
LMArena Math	1510	—
FrontierMath Erdős	2.9%	—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	95.6%	56.8%
SimpleQA Verified	46.5%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1540	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Qwen3 8B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Vision	1289	—
Furniture Assembly	75%	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English	1452	—
LMArena Chinese	1522	—
LMArena Russian	1451	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1495	—

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1498	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5.5	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1471	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1465	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1474	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 8B share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.