Model Comparison

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 4.8Which is better in 2026?

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 4.8 — which is better?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) and Claude Opus 4.8 (by Anthropic) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Claude Opus 4.8 is better at 10 benchmarks (CharXiv-R, GDPval-AA, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, MCP Atlas, SWE-bench Multilingual, SWE-Bench Pro, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0, Toolathlon). Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Qwen3.6-35B-A3B if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Claude Opus 4.8 if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 10 of 10 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped May 2026

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

10 benchmarks

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Claude Opus 4.8 is better at 10 benchmarks (CharXiv-R, GDPval-AA, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, MCP Atlas, SWE-bench Multilingual, SWE-Bench Pro, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0, Toolathlon).

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Jul 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.8
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Fri Jul 17 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 4.8 support multimodal inputs.

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

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Claude Opus 4.8

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Claude Opus 4.8 uses a proprietary license.

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

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Claude Opus 4.8

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B was released on 2026-04-16, while Claude Opus 4.8 was released on 2026-05-28.

Claude Opus 4.8 is 1 month newer than Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Apr 16, 2026

3 months ago

Claude Opus 4.8

May 28, 2026

1 months ago

1mo 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

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Has open weights
Anthropic
Larger context window (1,000,000 tokens)
Higher CharXiv-R score (89.9% vs 78.0%)
Higher GDPval-AA score (54.6% vs 35.2%)
Higher GPQA score (93.6% vs 86.0%)
Higher Humanity's Last Exam score (57.9% vs 21.4%)
Higher MCP Atlas score (82.2% vs 62.8%)
Higher SWE-bench Multilingual score (84.4% vs 67.2%)
Higher SWE-Bench Pro score (69.2% vs 49.5%)
Higher SWE-Bench Verified score (88.6% vs 73.4%)
Higher Terminal-Bench 2.0 score (74.6% vs 51.5%)
Higher Toolathlon score (59.9% vs 26.9%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 4.8 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
✓ Preferred
Claude Opus 4.8
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.8

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Claude Opus 4.8.

Which is better, Qwen3.6-35B-A3B or Claude Opus 4.8?

Claude Opus 4.8 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Claude Opus 4.8 is made by Anthropic. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Qwen3.6-35B-A3B compare to Claude Opus 4.8 in benchmarks?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scores MMLU-Redux: 93.3%, MMBench-V1.1: 92.8%, AI2D: 92.7%, AIME 2026: 92.7%, RefCOCO-avg: 92.0%. Claude Opus 4.8 scores GPQA: 93.6%, DeepSearchQA: 93.1%, CharXiv-R: 89.9%, SWE-Bench Verified: 88.6%, ScreenSpot Pro: 87.9%.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 4.8?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B supports an unknown number of tokens and Claude Opus 4.8 supports 1.0M tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 4.8?

Key differences include licensing (Apache 2.0 vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and Claude Opus 4.8?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Claude Opus 4.8 is developed by Anthropic.

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