Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Updated October 21, 2026. 6 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 88.9 and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 60.4 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking.
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 when the context window is larger, 1M against 262K tokens, or when what matters is AA Intelligence Index or Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads; pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct when output tokens cost 35.7x less.
- Shared results
- 6
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 89
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct only
- 10
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 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
No call
88.9 against 60.4, from different benchmarks with none in common.
Directional only
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 9.6.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 1326 against 1087.
Same board, both measured
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 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 88.9 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 60.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 51.2 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run): Claude Sonnet 5.5 55.0% against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 3.8%, 51.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.28 per million output tokens, 35.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5 | Bars | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 3 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 6 | 0 |
CodingDirectional onlyFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index23 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 60.4% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| LiveBench coding | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 64.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 92.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| 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 |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.3% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 15.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 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 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 56.0 | 9.6 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.2 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index19 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1303 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1265 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1245 | 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 | 34.5% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 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 20 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | 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 | 51.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.0% | 3.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 65.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| 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 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 88.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| 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 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 52.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 70.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 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 10 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1326 | 1087 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1367 | 1046 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1469 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1389 | 1085 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1458 | 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 index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | 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% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 32.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMCA | 68.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| 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 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
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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 Sonnet 5.5 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | July 31, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.07 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.28 |
| Coding index | 88.9 | 60.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 88.9 and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 60.4 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking. Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 when the context window is larger, 1M against 262K tokens, or when what matters is AA Intelligence Index or Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads; pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct when output tokens cost 35.7x less.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.07 and $0.28. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Claude Sonnet 5.5, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct comparison based on?
6 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5.5'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.