Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3.6-27B
Head-to-head evidence from 4 shared benchmark results across 3 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 4.5 #96 (Estimated); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Qwen3.6-27B share 4 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 8 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 4.5; 50 to Qwen3.6-27B.
Updated July 21, 2026- Shared results
- 4
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 8
- Qwen3.6-27B only
- 50
- Comparable categories
- 4 / 8
Pick Qwen3.6-27B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 4.5 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 4 shared benchmark results across 3 evidence categories; 4 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 has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 53.82 versus 53.61. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.
Qwen3.6-27B's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 89.2 against 11.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 50% to 59.3%. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 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 Sonnet 4.5 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 Sonnet 4.5.
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 Sonnet 4.5 | Δ | Qwen3.6-27B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math | Claude Sonnet 4.511.2 | Margin→ 78.0 | Qwen3.6-27B89.2 |
| Knowledge | Claude Sonnet 4.583.4 | Margin← 30.1 | Qwen3.6-27B53.3 |
| Agentic | Claude Sonnet 4.555.4 | Margin→ 3.9 | Qwen3.6-27B59.3 |
| Coding | Claude Sonnet 4.577.2 | Margin→ 0.3 | Qwen3.6-27B77.5 |
| Reasoning | Claude Sonnet 4.513.6 | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27BNot measured |
| Multimodal | Claude Sonnet 4.5Not measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27B76.7 |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
Terminal-Bench 2.0
AgenticA 50%B 59.3%Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 9.3Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 50%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 59.3%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
GPQA
KnowledgeA 83.4%B 87.8%Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 4.4GPQA: Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 83.4%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 87.8%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Claude Sonnet 4.5$3 input / $15 output | Qwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 output | Qwen3.6-27B has the lower combined listed price. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Claude Sonnet 4.5Not available | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Claude Sonnet 4.5Not available | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Claude Sonnet 4.5200K | Qwen3.6-27B262K | Qwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
AgenticQwen3.6-27B wins13 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 50% | 59.3% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| OSWorld-VerifiedSource | 61.4% | — | Not comparable |
| VITA-BenchSource | 17.0% | — | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | 48.51% | 54.84% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| JobBenchSource | 27.7% | — | Not comparable |
| Claw-EvalSource | — | 72.4% | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | — | 53.4% | Not comparable |
| QwenWebBenchSource | — | 1487 | Not 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 | — | 1140 | Not comparable |
CodingQwen3.6-27B wins8 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 77.2% | 77.2% | Tie |
| 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 |
Reasoning3 benchmarks
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.5 wins12 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQASource | 83.4% | 87.8% | 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 |
| HLESource | — | 24% | Not comparable |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | — | 37.0% | 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 |
MathQwen3.6-27B wins8 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME 2025Source | 87% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source | 13.495% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source | 4.167% | — | Not comparable |
| 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 |
Multimodal17 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena WebsiteSource | 1219 | — | Not 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. Following1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-IFBenchSource | — | 67.6% | Not comparable |
Frequently Asked Questions (5)
Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 53.82 to 53.61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 50% and 59.3%.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 53.3. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 77.2. Claude Sonnet 4.5 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
Which is better for math, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 89.2 versus 11.2. Claude Sonnet 4.5 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 59.3 versus 55.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 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.
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