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Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.5-9B

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 24.7. Qwen3.5-9B is 35.6x 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 24.7, ranking #3 overall.

On price, Qwen3.5-9B is roughly 35.6x 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 Qwen3.5-9B

  • cost matters — it's about 35.6x 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
Qwen3.5-9B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
58.0
#3
24.7
#169
Reasoning
56.6
#3
24.4
#164
Agents
42.3
#3
8.3
#139
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$10.00 / M
$0.15 / M
Context window
1,000,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Qwen3.5-9B
Math
36.9#34
23.9#125
Tool use
34.0#2
9.7#137
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 25 for Qwen3.5-9B

No common benchmarks found

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.5-9Bdon'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

Qwen3.5-9B costs less

For input processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Qwen3.5-9B ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($10.00/1M tokens) is 66.7x more expensive than Qwen3.5-9B ($0.15/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is more expensive than Qwen3.5-9B.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Mon Oct 05 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$10.00
Best providerAnthropic
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-9B
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.15
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 Qwen3.5-9B's 262,144 tokens. Qwen3.5-9B 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
Qwen3.5-9B
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Mon Oct 05 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.5-9B 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

Qwen3.5-9B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3.5-9B 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

Qwen3.5-9B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while Qwen3.5-9B was released on 2026-03-02.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 7 months newer than Qwen3.5-9B.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Sep 28, 2026

6 days ago

7mo newer
Qwen3.5-9B

Mar 2, 2026

7 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Qwen3.5-9B'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 Qwen3.5-9B's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Jun 2026

Qwen3.5-9B

—

Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Qwen3.5-9B is available from DeepInfra.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

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

Qwen3.5-9B

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.15/1M
* 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 Qwen3.5-9B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.5-9B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Qwen3.5-9B.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Qwen3.5-9B?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 24.7. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is made by Anthropic and Qwen3.5-9B 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 Qwen3.5-9B 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%. Qwen3.5-9B scores IFEval: 91.5%, MMLU-Redux: 91.1%, C-Eval: 88.2%, MAXIFE: 83.4%, Global PIQA: 83.2%.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 cheaper than Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is 20.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00/M input and $10.00/M output via anthropic. Qwen3.5-9B costs $0.10/M input and $0.15/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Qwen3.5-9B?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Qwen3.5-9B 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 Qwen3.5-9B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (58.0 vs 24.7), 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 Qwen3.5-9B?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and Qwen3.5-9B is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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