Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 27B
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads Qwen3.6 27B on coding, 87.3 to 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Qwen3.6 27B costs 3.7x less per output token ($2.70 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 13 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 13 shared
Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B: which to pick
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 36.8 for Qwen3.6 27B.
Pick Qwen3.6 27B for output tokens 3.7x cheaper ($2.70 vs $10.00 per million).
Model AClaude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic87.3/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved taskModel BQwen3.6 27BQwen36.8/1002 independent benchmarks$1.30 per solved task
- Shared results
- 13
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 83
- Qwen3.6 27B only
- 11
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
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, six public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 87.3 against 36.8.
5 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 21.4.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Qwen3.6 27B has a AA Agentic Index result, 18.5.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1326.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Vals Index result, 70.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 27B
Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070, Qwen3.6 27B $0.0018 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Qwen3.6 27B has the number, $1.30.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 87.3 from 5 benchmarks, Qwen3.6 27B 36.8 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 49.3 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 5.5 92.4% against Qwen3.6 27B 11.9%, 80.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 against Qwen3.6 27B $2.70 per million output tokens, 3.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes 1M tokens, Qwen3.6 27B 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 Sonnet 5.5 | Bars | Qwen3.6 27B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| General | 4 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 13 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 53.7 | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.0% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 64.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 92.4% | 11.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 6.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 58.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 59.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | 42.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 34.8% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1819.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1513 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1817 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1741 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1737 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 56.0 | 21.4 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.2 | 146.2 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 18.5 | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1305 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1260 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1260 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 78.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 30.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 42.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 10.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 81.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 59.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 94.2% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SpireClimb | 1.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $11,165 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 84.2% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.0% | 23.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 95.6% | 85.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 65.0% | 7.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1531 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1331 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | 91.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 88.8% | 35.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.2% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.3% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 71.3% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.3% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 52.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1468 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1326 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1368 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1471 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1392 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1445 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1364 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench design | 85.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 59.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 67.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | 45.6% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 67.6% | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 77.3% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | 78.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMCA | 68.3% | 34.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Furniture assembly | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1492 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1467 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1287 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1484 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1456 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1535 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1454 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1495 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1289 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1297 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1242 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B | 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 Sonnet 5.5$0.0070Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B$0.0018Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.130Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B$0.031Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.500Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B$0.117Fits in one request
Qwen3.6 27B 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 Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | April 27, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $2.70 |
| Coding index | 87.3 | 36.8 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $1.30 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3.6 27B for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 36.8 for Qwen3.6 27B. Pick Qwen3.6 27B for output tokens 3.7x cheaper ($2.70 vs $10.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.45 and $2.70. Cost per solved task is known for Qwen3.6 27B only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.6 27B?
Claude Sonnet 5.5, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.6 27B comparison based on?
13 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5.5's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.6 27B's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.