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Model comparison

Claude 4.1 Opus vs Qwen3.6-27B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 2 shared benchmark results across 2 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

45.88/100
Margin
7.9pts
winning →
53.82/100
0 category wins1 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude 4.1 Opus #142 (Supported); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude 4.1 Opus and Qwen3.6-27B share 2 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 2 results are unique to Claude 4.1 Opus; 52 to Qwen3.6-27B.

Updated July 21, 2026
Shared results
2
Claude 4.1 Opus only
2
Qwen3.6-27B only
52
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Pick Qwen3.6-27B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus only becomes the better choice if 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; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Qwen3.6-27B is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 53.82 to 45.88. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Qwen3.6-27B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 77.5 against 74.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 74.5% to 77.2%.

Claude 4.1 Opus is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $75.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.6-27B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Qwen3.6-27B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 4.1 Opus 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. Qwen3.6-27B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 200K for Claude 4.1 Opus.

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 scores and score margins for Claude 4.1 Opus and Qwen3.6-27B
CategoryClaude 4.1 OpusΔQwen3.6-27B
CodingClaude 4.1 Opus74.5Margin 3.0Qwen3.6-27B77.5
AgenticClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B59.3
KnowledgeClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B53.3
MathClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B89.2
MultimodalClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B76.7

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude 4.1 OpusB · Qwen3.6-27B
  1. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 74.5%B 77.2%
    Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 2.7
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude 4.1 Opus scored 74.5%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 77.2%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude 4.1 Opus$15 input / $75 outputQwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 outputQwen3.6-27B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude 4.1 Opus29 tok/sQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude 4.1 Opus1.66 sQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude 4.1 Opus200KQwen3.6-27B262KQwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
JobBenchSource 21.9%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 72.4%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource 53.4%Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource 1487Not comparable
AndroidWorldSource 70.3%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 27.0%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 94.2%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 32.0%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1140Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 54.84%Not comparable
CodingQwen3.6-27B wins
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 74.5%77.2%Qwen3.6-27B leads
SWE MultilingualSource 71.3%Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.5%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%Not comparable
LiveCodeBenchSource 83.9%Not comparable
NL2RepoSource 36.2%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 53.7%Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 39.8%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
AA-LCRSource 68.7%Not comparable
CritPtSource 1.1%Not comparable
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 28.2%37.0%Qwen3.6-27B leads
MMLU-ProSource 86.2%Not comparable
MMLU-ReduxSource 93.5%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 66%Not comparable
C-EvalSource 91.4%Not comparable
GPQASource 87.8%Not comparable
HLESource 24%Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.2%Not comparable
AA-HLESource 21.6%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -19.8%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 19.2%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 48.3%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
HMMT Feb 2025Source 93.8%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source 90.7%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 84.3%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 80.8%Not comparable
AIME26Source 94.1%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1207Not comparable
MMMUSource 82.9%Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource 75.8%Not comparable
RealWorldQASource 84.1%Not comparable
DynaMathSource 85.6%Not comparable
MStarSource 81.4%Not comparable
SimpleVQASource 56.1%Not comparable
CharXivSource 78.4%Not comparable
CC-OCRSource 81.2%Not comparable
CountBenchSource 97.8%Not comparable
RefCOCO (avg)Source 92.5%Not comparable
ERQASource 62.5%Not comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)Source 87.7%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource 84.4%Not comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)Source 86.6%Not comparable
V*Source 94.7%Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 74.6%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusQwen3.6-27BResult
AA-IFBenchSource 67.6%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude 4.1 Opus or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3.6-27B is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 53.82 to 45.88. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 74.5% and 77.2%.

Which is better for coding, Claude 4.1 Opus or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 74.5. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

Claude 4.1 Opus
API / mo$67,500
Self-host / moNot listed
Break-even
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Qwen3.6-27B
API / mo$0
Self-host / mo$429
Break-even
Model the full break-even

Related Comparisons

Last updated: July 21, 2026

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