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Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.1 to 10.7. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is 17.8x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 58.1 to 10.7, ranking #3 overall.

On price, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is roughly 17.8x 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 58.1 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 VL 4B Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 17.8x 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
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
58.1
#3
10.7
#269
Reasoning
56.6
#3
8.2
#282
Agents
42.3
#3
2.1
#172
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$10.00 / M
$0.60 / M
Context window
1,000,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Math
36.9#34
7.8#264
Vision
40.1#3
7.0#150
Multimodal
40.2#2
8.6#130
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 45 for Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

No common benchmarks found

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 VL 4B 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

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($10.00/1M tokens) is 16.7x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.60/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is more expensive than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Tue Sep 29 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$10.00
Best providerAnthropic
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.60
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 Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct's 262,144 tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 5.5 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Tue Sep 29 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 12 months newer than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Sep 28, 2026

1 days ago

1.0yr newer
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

1.0 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Qwen3 VL 4B 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 Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Jun 2026

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

—

Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is available from DeepInfra.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

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

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.60/1M
* 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 Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.1 to 10.7. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is made by Anthropic and Qwen3 VL 4B 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 Qwen3 VL 4B 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%. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 95.3%, ScreenSpot: 94.0%, OCRBench: 88.1%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.1%, AI2D: 84.1%.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is 20.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00/M input and $10.00/M output via anthropic. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.60/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct supports 262K 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 Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (58.1 vs 10.7), context window (1.0M vs 262K), input pricing ($2.00 vs $0.10/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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