The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Claude Sonnet 4 leads the LLM Stats Score 24.3 to 20.3. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 12.3x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 4 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 24.3 to 20.3, ranking #157 overall.

In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude Sonnet 4 wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

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 Sonnet 4 also accepts a larger context window (200,000 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 Sonnet 4

  • overall performance matters — it scores 24.3 and ranks #157 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 4 exact shared results
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

  • 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.

Claude Sonnet 4
Anthropic
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
24.3
#157
20.3
#186
Reasoning
24.4
#149
20.1
#181
Coding
17.0
#116
2.0
#220
Agents
5.9
#135
8.9
#122
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
4 of 4
0 of 4
Input price
$3.00 / M
$0.15 / M
Output price
$15.00 / M
$1.50 / M
Context window
200,000
65,536

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Claude Sonnet 4
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Math
16.1#203
20.9#147
Tool use
18.6#60
4.8#147
Writing
19.2#23
9.5#72
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

8 reported for Claude Sonnet 4 · 24 for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

4 shared

Claude Sonnet 4 outperforms in 4 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA, TAU-bench Airline, TAU-bench Retail), while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Sep 04 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct costs less

For input processing, Claude Sonnet 4 ($3.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($0.15/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Sonnet 4 ($15.00/1M tokens) is 10.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct ($1.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 4 is more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Fri Sep 04 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4
Input tokens$3.00
Output tokens$15.00
Best providerAnthropic
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Input tokens$0.15
Output tokens$1.50
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Sonnet 4 accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct's 65,536 tokens. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct can generate longer responses up to 65,536 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 4 is limited to 64,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4
Input200,000 tokens
Output64,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Fri Sep 04 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Sonnet 4 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct does not.

Claude Sonnet 4 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Sonnet 4

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 4 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.

Claude Sonnet 4

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 4 was released on 2025-05-22, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct was released on 2025-09-10.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 4 months newer than Claude Sonnet 4.

Claude Sonnet 4

May 22, 2025

1.3 years ago

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Sep 10, 2025

11 months ago

3mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 4 is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is available from Novita.

Claude Sonnet 4

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
bedrock logo
AWS Bedrock
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.50/1M
* 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 Sonnet 4 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 4
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4 leads the LLM Stats Score 24.3 to 20.3. Claude Sonnet 4 is made by Anthropic and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct 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 Sonnet 4 compare to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct in benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4 scores MMMLU: 86.5%, TAU-bench Retail: 80.5%, GPQA: 75.4%, MMMU: 74.4%, SWE-Bench Verified: 72.7%. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct scores MMLU-Redux: 90.9%, MultiPL-E: 87.8%, IFEval: 87.6%, WritingBench: 87.3%, Creative Writing v3: 85.3%.

Is Claude Sonnet 4 cheaper than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is 20.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Sonnet 4 costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output via anthropic. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct costs $0.15/M input and $1.50/M output via novita.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 4 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4 supports 200K tokens and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct supports 66K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Sonnet 4 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (24.3 vs 20.3), context window (200K vs 66K), input pricing ($3.00 vs $0.15/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 4 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4 is developed by Anthropic and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

Related comparisons