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Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 12.1. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is 11.0x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 12.1, ranking #3 overall.

On price, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is roughly 11.0x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 58.0 and ranks #3 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 Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 11.0x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
58.0
#3
12.1
#261
Reasoning
56.6
#3
12.2
#253
Coding
48.8
#2
9.2
#183
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
$0.35 / M
Output price
$10.00 / M
$0.40 / M
Context window
1,000,000
131,072

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Math
36.9#34
17.8#193
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 14 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

No common benchmarks found

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen2.5 72B Instructdon'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

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 5.7x more expensive than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct ($0.35/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($10.00/1M tokens) is 25.0x more expensive than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct ($0.40/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is more expensive than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 01 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$10.00
Best providerAnthropic
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Input tokens$0.35
Output tokens$0.40
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's 131,072 tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is limited to 8,192 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Thu Oct 01 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2.5 72B Instruct does not.

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

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen2.5 72B Instruct uses Qwen.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Qwen

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while Qwen2.5 72B Instruct was released on 2024-09-19.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 25 months newer than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Sep 28, 2026

3 days ago

2.0yr newer
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

Sep 19, 2024

2.0 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Sonnet 5.5's training data extends to 2026-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2.5 72B Instruct's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Jun 2026

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

—

Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Hyperbolic, Fireworks, Together.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $10.00/1M

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.35/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.40/1M
hyperbolic logo
Hyperbolic
Input Price:Input: $0.40/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.40/1M
fireworks logo
Fireworks
Input Price:Input: $0.89/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.89/1M
together logo
Together
Input Price:Input: $1.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.20/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 12.1. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is made by Anthropic and Qwen2.5 72B 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 5.5 compare to Qwen2.5 72B Instruct in benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores BenchCAD (with Python tool): 96.3%, ArXivMath (with tools): 95.2%, Global-MMLU: 92.1%, MILU: 91.6%, SWE-bench Multilingual: 90.3%. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores GSM8k: 95.8%, MT-Bench: 93.5%, MBPP: 88.2%, MMLU-Redux: 86.8%, HumanEval: 86.6%.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper than Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is 5.7x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00/M input and $10.00/M output via anthropic. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $0.35/M input and $0.40/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct supports 131K 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 5.5 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (58.0 vs 12.1), context window (1.0M vs 131K), input pricing ($2.00 vs $0.35/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Qwen). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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