# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview
- Last updated: September 29, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads overall 56.13 to 54.95.
- The clearest category separation is in mathematics, where the averages are 48.8 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 41.3 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SuperGPQA in Knowledge, with scores of 95% and 73.9%.
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) also has the larger context window at 256K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Alibaba |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 200K | 256K |
| Overall Score | 56.13 | 54.95 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 10 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 43.1 (Supported · #51/117)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 59.1% | 65.4% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
| OSWorld-Verified | 72.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | 67.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 65.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 62.92% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 36.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 57.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| QwenClawBench | Coming soon | 59.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Tie
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 47 (Supported · #48/143)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 47.1 (Supported · #47/143)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-Rebench | 60.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | 80.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 51.48% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench31 | 48.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 24.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.4% | 72.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 57.3% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 47% | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 42.9% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 65.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 69.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 55.1 (#35/50)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 52.8 (Supported · #54/169)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | 95% | 73.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | 49% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 46.6 (#88/124)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 48.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 41.3 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 32.400% | 23.103% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 8.300% | 4.167% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

The widest category gap is in mathematics, where the averages are 48.8 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 41.3 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 4.6 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 currently has 26 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) cover on BenchLM?

Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) currently has 10 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)
- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) profile](/models/qwen3-6-max-preview)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)