Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 12.3x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro). Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
On price, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is roughly 12.3x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet also accepts a larger context window (200,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3.5 Sonnet
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 2 shared benchmarks
- cost matters — it's about 12.3x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro).
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 10.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($1.50/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3.5 Sonnet accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct's 65,536 tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is limited to 65,536 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct does not.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released on 2024-06-21, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct was released on 2025-09-10.
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 15 months newer than Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Jun 21, 2024
2.2 years ago
Sep 10, 2025
11 months ago
1.2yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available from Bedrock, Google. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is available from Novita.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.