# Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview
- Last updated: September 22, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 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 5 leads overall 69.52 to 64.45.
- The clearest category separation is in coding, where the averages are 63.9 for Claude Sonnet 5 and 54.5 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.0 in Agentic, with scores of 80.4% and 65.4%.
- Claude Sonnet 5 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Alibaba |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 256K |
| Overall Score | 69.52 | 64.45 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 10 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $2.00 / $10.00 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 66.2 (Supported · #12/156)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 60.4 (Estimated · #22/156)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 14.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | 65.4% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| BrowseComp | 84.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | 57.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 81.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 74.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 16% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| QwenClawBench | Coming soon | 59.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Claude Sonnet 5
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 63.9 (Supported · #14/159)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 54.5 (Supported · #42/159)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 85.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 63.2% | 57.3% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SWE Multilingual | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multimodal | 28.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | 65.4% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 42.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench32 | 61.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench CII v1 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 79.6% | 72.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| cursorBench40 | 34.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 47% | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 42.9% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.4 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.4 (#15/50)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 88.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 77% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 66.2 (Supported · #21/187)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 60.9 (Estimated · #37/187)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| HLE | 57.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 43.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE-Verified | 31.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LABBench2 | 80.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | Coming soon | 73.9% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 41.3 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | Coming soon | 23.103% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | Coming soon | 4.167% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

The widest category gap is in coding, where the averages are 63.9 for Claude Sonnet 5 and 54.5 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 5 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 5 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 5 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-claude-sonnet-5)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)
- [Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 5 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-5)
- [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)