Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 23.8. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 8.2x 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 23.8, ranking #3 overall.
On price, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is roughly 8.2x 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 agents — 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-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
- cost matters — it's about 8.2x cheaper per token
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 23 for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinkingdon'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
For input processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 13.3x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($10.00/1M tokens) is 6.7x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($1.50/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's 65,536 tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is limited to 65,536 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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 Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 13 months newer than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.
Sep 28, 2026
1 days ago
1.0yr newerSep 10, 2025
1.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking'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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's cutoff date.
Jun 2026
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Provider Availability
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is available from Novita.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.