Claude 3 Opus vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 61.5x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3 Opus 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 61.5x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus
- 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 61.5x 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 Opus 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 Opus ($15.00/1M tokens) is 100.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Opus ($75.00/1M tokens) is 50.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($1.50/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct's 65,536 tokens. Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct does not.
Claude 3 Opus can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3 Opus
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus was released on 2024-02-29, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct was released on 2025-09-10.
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 19 months newer than Claude 3 Opus.
Feb 29, 2024
2.5 years ago
Sep 10, 2025
11 months ago
1.5yr 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 Opus is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is available from Novita.
Claude 3 Opus
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Opus and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.