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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.5 397B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 20 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

65.32/100
Margin
8.3pts
← winning
57.01/100
4 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 5 #29 (Estimated); Qwen3.5 397B #71 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.5 397B share 20 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 16 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 5; 35 to Qwen3.5 397B.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
20
Claude Sonnet 5 only
16
Qwen3.5 397B only
35
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5 397B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 20 shared benchmark results across 5 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

Claude Sonnet 5 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 65.32 to 57.01. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Sonnet 5's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 81.9 against 56.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 57.4% to 28.7%.

Claude Sonnet 5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.60 input / $3.60 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.5 397B. That is roughly 2.8x on output cost alone. Claude Sonnet 5 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Qwen3.5 397B 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. Claude Sonnet 5 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for Qwen3.5 397B.

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 Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.5 397B
CategoryClaude Sonnet 5ΔQwen3.5 397B
AgenticClaude Sonnet 581.9Margin← 25.4Qwen3.5 397B56.5
CodingClaude Sonnet 576.7Margin← 10.2Qwen3.5 397B66.5
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 588.3Margin← 8.7Qwen3.5 397B79.6
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 557.4Margin← 0.8Qwen3.5 397B56.6
ReasoningClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5 397B63.2
MathClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5 397B90.6
MultilingualClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5 397B84.7
Inst. FollowingClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5 397B92.6

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Sonnet 5B · Qwen3.5 397B

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.4%B 28.7%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 28.7
    HLE: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 57.4%; Qwen3.5 397B scored 28.7%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  2. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 80.4%B 52.5%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 27.9
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 80.4%; Qwen3.5 397B scored 52.5%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  3. BrowseComp

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 84.7%B 62%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 22.7
    BrowseComp: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 84.7%; Qwen3.5 397B scored 62%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  4. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 63.2%B 50.9%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 12.3
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 63.2%; Qwen3.5 397B scored 50.9%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 85.2%B 76.2%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 9
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 85.2%; Qwen3.5 397B scored 76.2%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Sonnet 5$2 input / $10 outputQwen3.5 397B$0.6 input / $3.6 outputQwen3.5 397B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.5 397B96 tok/sA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.5 397B2.44 sA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Sonnet 51MQwen3.5 397B128KClaude Sonnet 5 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 80.4%52.5%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.7%62%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HLE w/ toolsSource 57.4%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 81.2%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1607962Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA Agentic IndexSource 46.7%19.9%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
GDPval-AASource 55.4%23.1%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA BriefcaseSource 1388—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 39.2%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 44.7%—Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource 90.1%—Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource 28.2%—Not comparable
aaTerminalBench21Source 80.5%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource —56.8%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource —51.8%Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource —68.4%Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource —43.7%Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource —37.6%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource —36.3%Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource —46.1%Not comparable
MCP-TasksSource —74.2%Not comparable
WideResearchSource —74.0%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource —95.6%Not comparable
Gert LabsSource —46.76%Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource —14.2%Not comparable
APEX-Agents-AASource —15.3%Not comparable
CodingClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 85.2%76.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 63.2%50.9%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 78.3%—Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 28.1%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 80.4%—Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 42.7%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 61.5%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 71.5%48.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.6%42.0%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
LiveCodeBench v6Source —83.6%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
AA-LCRSource 70.7%65.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CritPtSource 16.9%1.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
LongBench v2Source —63.2%Not comparable
AI-NeedleSource —68.7%Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
HLESource 57.4%28.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 43.2%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 53.4%33.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 91.1%89.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-HLESource 39.6%27.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 15.3%-29.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 38.3%31.4%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 37.3%89.1%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
GPQASource —88.4%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource —70.4%Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource —87.8%Not comparable
MMLU-ReduxSource —94.9%Not comparable
C-EvalSource —93%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
AIME26Source —93.3%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source —94.8%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source —92.7%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source —87.9%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource —80.9%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
MMLU-ProXSource —84.7%Not comparable
NOVA-63Source —59.1%Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
CharXivSource 88.3%80.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 77%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 77.3%77.3%Tie
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1314—Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource —79%Not comparable
MathVisionSource —88.6%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource —84.7%Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource —65.6%Not comparable
V*Source —95.8%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.5 397BResult
IFEvalSource —92.6%Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource —78.8%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5 397B?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 65.32 to 57.01. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 57.4% and 28.7%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5 397B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 57.4 versus 56.6. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5 397B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.7 versus 66.5. Inside this category, AA Coding Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5 397B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.9 versus 56.5. Inside this category, GDPval-AA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.5 397B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 88.3 versus 79.6. Inside this category, CharXiv is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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