Model comparison
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Head-to-head evidence from 2 shared benchmark results across 2 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude 3.5 Sonnet unranked; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B #31
BenchAlign evidence: Claude 3.5 Sonnet estimated; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B estimated. Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B share 2 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 2 results are unique to Claude 3.5 Sonnet; 56 to Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.
Updated July 15, 2026- Shared results
- 2
- Claude 3.5 Sonnet only
- 2
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only
- 56
- Comparable categories
- 3 / 8
Pick Qwen3.6-35B-A3B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 3.5 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 2 shared benchmark results across 2 evidence categories; 3 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 59 to 39. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 88.2 against 1.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 59.4% to 86%. Claude 3.5 Sonnet does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 200K for Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Category breakdown
Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.
| Category | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Δ | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math | Claude 3.5 Sonnet1.6 | Margin→ 86.6 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B88.2 |
| Coding | Claude 3.5 Sonnet49.0 | Margin→ 24.8 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B73.8 |
| Knowledge | Claude 3.5 Sonnet59.4 | Margin← 7.6 | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.8 |
| Agentic | Claude 3.5 SonnetNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.5 |
| Multimodal | Claude 3.5 SonnetNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B76.3 |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
GPQA
KnowledgeA 59.4%B 86%Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 26.6GPQA: Claude 3.5 Sonnet scored 59.4%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 86%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
SWE-bench Verified
CodingA 49%B 73.4%Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 24.4SWE-bench Verified: Claude 3.5 Sonnet scored 49%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 73.4%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Claude 3.5 Sonnet$3 input / $15 output | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete price comparison is not available. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Claude 3.5 SonnetNot available | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Claude 3.5 SonnetNot available | Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Claude 3.5 Sonnet200K | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B262K | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
Agentic15 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 51.5% | Not comparable |
| Claw-EvalSource | — | 68.7% | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | — | 52.6% | Not comparable |
| QwenWebBenchSource | — | 1397 | Not comparable |
| τ³-bench resultsSource | — | 67.2% | Not comparable |
| VITA-BenchSource | — | 35.6% | Not comparable |
| DeepPlanningSource | — | 25.9% | Not comparable |
| ToolathlonSource | — | 26.9% | Not comparable |
| MCP AtlasSource | — | 62.8% | Not comparable |
| WideResearchSource | — | 60.1% | Not comparable |
| AA Agentic IndexSource | — | 21.4% | Not comparable |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | — | 95.3% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 27.4% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 1049 | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | — | 42.65% | Not comparable |
CodingQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins9 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 49% | 73.4% | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads |
| SWE MultilingualSource | — | 67.2% | Not comparable |
| SWE-bench ProSource | — | 49.5% | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 51.5% | Not comparable |
| LiveCodeBenchSource | — | 80.4% | Not comparable |
| NL2RepoSource | — | 29.4% | Not comparable |
| AA Coding IndexSource | — | 41.9% | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench HardSource | — | 34.8% | Not comparable |
| AA-SciCodeSource | — | 35.8% | Not comparable |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
KnowledgeClaude 3.5 Sonnet wins11 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQASource | 59.4% | 86% | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads |
| MMLU-ProSource | — | 85.2% | Not comparable |
| SuperGPQASource | — | 64.7% | Not comparable |
| C-EvalSource | — | 90% | Not comparable |
| HLESource | — | 21.4% | Not comparable |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | — | 31.6% | Not comparable |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | — | 84.1% | Not comparable |
| AA-HLESource | — | 20.2% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | — | -21.4% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | — | 18.9% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | — | 49.7% | Not comparable |
MathQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins7 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source | 2.069% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source | 0.000% | — | Not comparable |
| HMMT Feb 2025Source | — | 90.7% | Not comparable |
| HMMT Nov 2025Source | — | 89.1% | Not comparable |
| HMMT Feb 2026Source | — | 83.6% | Not comparable |
| MMAnswerBenchSource | — | 78.9% | Not comparable |
| AIME26Source | — | 92.7% | Not comparable |
Multimodal15 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMMUSource | — | 81.7% | Not comparable |
| MMMU-ProSource | — | 75.3% | Not comparable |
| RealWorldQASource | — | 85.3% | Not comparable |
| OmniDocBench 1.5Source | — | 89.9% | Not comparable |
| CharXivSource | — | 78% | Not comparable |
| SimpleVQASource | — | 58.9% | Not comparable |
| CC-OCRSource | — | 81.9% | Not comparable |
| AI2D_TESTSource | — | 92.7% | Not comparable |
| RefCOCO (avg)Source | — | 92.0% | Not comparable |
| ODINW13Source | — | 50.8% | Not comparable |
| Video-MME (with subtitle)Source | — | 86.6% | Not comparable |
| Video-MME (w/o subtitle)Source | — | 82.5% | Not comparable |
| VideoMMMUSource | — | 83.7% | Not comparable |
| MLVU (M-Avg)Source | — | 86.2% | Not comparable |
| AA-MMMU-ProSource | — | 75.0% | Not comparable |
Inst. Following1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Qwen3.6-35B-A3B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-IFBenchSource | — | 64.4% | Not comparable |
Frequently Asked Questions (4)
Which is better, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 59 to 39. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 59.4% and 86%.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 59.4 versus 51.8. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 49. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for math, Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 88.2 versus 1.6. Claude 3.5 Sonnet stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
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