Claude Opus 4.6 vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Updated October 21, 2026. 11 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
vs boards won of 11 shared
Decision reading
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 for coding: it scores 66.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 60.4 for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct.
Pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct when output tokens cost 89.3x less.
Model AClaude Opus 4.6Anthropic66.9/1002 independent benchmarks$1.56 per solved taskModel BQwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructQwen60.4/1001 independent benchmarkNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 11
- Claude Opus 4.6 only
- 97
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct only
- 5
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6 scores 66.9 against 60.4.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6 leads, 31.9 against 9.6.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.6 has a GPQA Diamond result, 89.7%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.6 has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.6 has a MMLU Pro result, 89.1%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6 leads, 1291 against 1087.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Opus 4.6
Claude Opus 4.6 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Claude Opus 4.6 $0.018, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.6 has the number, $1.56.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Opus 4.6 66.9 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 60.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 57.6 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Claude Opus 4.6 92.1% against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 34.5%, 57.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Opus 4.6 $25.00 against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.28 per million output tokens, 89.3x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Opus 4.6 takes 1M tokens, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Opus 4.6 | Bars | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 3 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 11 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.6% | 60.4% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Lite | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 72.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1547 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 78.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 57.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.3% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 48.5% | 15.2% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Terminal-Bench | 79.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| FrontierCode | 26.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 41.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Cybench | 93.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1534 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1539 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1559 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1543 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 31.9 | 9.6 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 155.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1206 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1220 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1207 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1204 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1214 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 92.1% | 34.5% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| APEX-Agents | 46.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| METR time horizons | 78.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 4.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 55.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $8,018 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 89.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.6% | 51.6% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 39.9% | 3.8% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 94.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 69.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| SimpleBench | 67.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 21.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 25.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| EBR-bench | 12.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1525 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1544 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1530 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1340 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1337 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 29.0 | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 94.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 66.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 26.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 50.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1518 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1525 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 85.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 62.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 67.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 95.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 70.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 47.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1519 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1512 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1291 | 1087 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1284 | 1046 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1278 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1279 | 1085 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1274 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1289 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1227 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1254 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 86.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| IFBench | 53.1% | 32.7% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 78.0% | 32.7% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| DTBench | 91.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMCA | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| CL-bench | 20.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 28.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| CL-bench Life | 17.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1501 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1521 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1505 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1316 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1511 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1488 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1551 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1500 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1488 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1512 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1511 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1518 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1492 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1324 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1370 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1326 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1314 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1274 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1331 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1507 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Claude Opus 4.6$0.018Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$0.0002Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.6$0.325Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$0.0043Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.6$1.25Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$0.017Fits in one request
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | February 4, 2026 | July 31, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $5.00 | $0.07 |
| Output $/Mtok | $25.00 | $0.28 |
| Coding index | 66.9 | 60.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.56 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Opus 4.6 better than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding?
Pick Claude Opus 4.6 for coding: it scores 66.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 60.4 for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct. Pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct when output tokens cost 89.3x less.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.07 and $0.28. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Opus 4.6 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.6 or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Claude Opus 4.6, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 4.6 vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct comparison based on?
11 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Opus 4.6's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.