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Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3 Max

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 59.8 to 21.7. Qwen3 Max is 4.9x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 59.8 to 21.7, ranking #1 overall.

On price, Qwen3 Max is roughly 4.9x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Claude Opus 5.5 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Opus 5.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 59.8 and ranks #1 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

Choose Qwen3 Max

  • cost matters — it's about 4.9x cheaper per token

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic
Qwen3 Max
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
59.8
#1
21.7
#188
Reasoning
57.9
#1
21.9
#179
Coding
51.8
#1
11.4
#161
Agents
44.6
#2
5.0
#151
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$4.00 / M
$0.50 / M
Output price
$20.00 / M
$5.00 / M
Context window
1,000,000
256,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Claude Opus 5.5
Qwen3 Max
Math
42.5#5
22.4#138
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

31 reported for Claude Opus 5.5 · 6 for Qwen3 Max

No common benchmarks found

Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3 Maxdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3 Max costs less

For input processing, Claude Opus 5.5 ($4.00/1M tokens) is 8.0x more expensive than Qwen3 Max ($0.50/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Opus 5.5 ($20.00/1M tokens) is 4.0x more expensive than Qwen3 Max ($5.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Opus 5.5 is more expensive than Qwen3 Max.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Opus 5.5
Input tokens$4.00
Output tokens$20.00
Best providerAnthropic
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 Max
Input tokens$0.50
Output tokens$5.00
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Opus 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3 Max's 256,000 tokens. Qwen3 Max can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Claude Opus 5.5 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Opus 5.5
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 Max
Input256,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Tue Sep 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Opus 5.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3 Max does not.

Claude Opus 5.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 5.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 Max

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Claude Opus 5.5

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3 Max

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 5.5 was released on 2026-09-22, while Qwen3 Max was released on 2025-12-15.

Claude Opus 5.5 is 9 months newer than Qwen3 Max.

Claude Opus 5.5

Sep 22, 2026

0 days ago

9mo newer
Qwen3 Max

Dec 15, 2025

9 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Opus 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Qwen3 Max's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Opus 5.5's training data extends to 2026-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3 Max's cutoff date.

Claude Opus 5.5

Jun 2026

Qwen3 Max

—

Provider Availability

Claude Opus 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Qwen3 Max is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

Claude Opus 5.5

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $4.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $20.00/1M

Qwen3 Max

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.50/1MOutput Price:Output: $5.00/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $1.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3 Max side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Opus 5.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 Max
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 5.5 vs Qwen3 Max.

Which is better, Claude Opus 5.5 or Qwen3 Max?

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 59.8 to 21.7. Claude Opus 5.5 is made by Anthropic and Qwen3 Max is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Opus 5.5 compare to Qwen3 Max in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores BenchCAD (with Python tool): 96.2%, Global-MMLU: 94.3%, SWE-bench Multilingual: 93.9%, MILU: 93.1%, ArXivMath: 91.2%. Qwen3 Max scores AIME 2025: 81.6%, t2-bench: 74.8%, SWE-Bench Verified: 69.6%, LiveCodeBench v6: 69.0%, SuperGPQA: 65.1%.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 cheaper than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is 8.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4.00/M input and $20.00/M output via anthropic. Qwen3 Max costs $0.50/M input and $5.00/M output via novita.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3 Max?

Claude Opus 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Qwen3 Max supports 256K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3 Max?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (59.8 vs 21.7), context window (1.0M vs 256K), input pricing ($4.00 vs $0.50/M), multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 5.5 and Qwen3 Max?

Claude Opus 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and Qwen3 Max is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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