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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.6-27B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 21 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

65.32/100
Margin
11.5pts
← winning
53.82/100
3 category wins1 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 5 #29 (Estimated); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.6-27B share 21 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 15 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 5; 33 to Qwen3.6-27B.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
21
Claude Sonnet 5 only
15
Qwen3.6-27B only
33
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-27B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 21 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 53.82. 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 59.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 57.4% to 24%. Qwen3.6-27B does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Sonnet 5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $10.00 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. Claude Sonnet 5 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 262K for Qwen3.6-27B.

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 Qwen3.6-27B
CategoryClaude Sonnet 5ΔQwen3.6-27B
AgenticClaude Sonnet 581.9Margin← 22.6Qwen3.6-27B59.3
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 588.3Margin← 11.6Qwen3.6-27B76.7
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 557.4Margin← 4.1Qwen3.6-27B53.3
CodingClaude Sonnet 576.7Margin→ 0.8Qwen3.6-27B77.5
MathClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B89.2

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Sonnet 5B · Qwen3.6-27B

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.4%B 24%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 33.4
    HLE: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 57.4%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 24%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  2. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 80.4%B 59.3%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 21.1
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 80.4%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 59.3%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  3. CharXiv

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 88.3%B 78.4%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 9.9
    CharXiv: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 88.3%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 78.4%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  4. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 63.2%B 53.5%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 9.7
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 63.2%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 53.5%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 85.2%B 77.2%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 8
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 85.2%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 77.2%. 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 5Qwen3.6-27BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Sonnet 5$2 input / $10 outputQwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 outputQwen3.6-27B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Sonnet 51MQwen3.6-27B262KClaude Sonnet 5 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 80.4%59.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.7%—Not comparable
HLE w/ toolsSource 57.4%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 81.2%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 16071140Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA Agentic IndexSource 46.7%27.0%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
GDPval-AASource 55.4%32.0%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 —72.4%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource —53.4%Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource —1487Not comparable
AndroidWorldSource —70.3%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource —94.2%Not comparable
Gert LabsSource —54.84%Not comparable
CodingQwen3.6-27B wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 85.2%77.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 63.2%53.5%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 78.3%71.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE MultimodalSource 28.1%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 80.4%59.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 42.7%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 61.5%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 71.5%53.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.6%39.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
LiveCodeBenchSource —83.9%Not comparable
NL2RepoSource —36.2%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
AA-LCRSource 70.7%68.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CritPtSource 16.9%1.1%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
HLESource 57.4%24%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 43.2%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 53.4%37.0%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 91.1%84.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-HLESource 39.6%21.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 15.3%-19.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 38.3%19.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 37.3%48.3%Claude Sonnet 5 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
Math
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
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
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
CharXivSource 88.3%78.4%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 77%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 77.3%74.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1314—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
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
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6-27BResult
AA-IFBenchSource —67.6%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 65.32 to 53.82. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 57.4% and 24%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 57.4 versus 53.3. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 76.7. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.9 versus 59.3. 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 Qwen3.6-27B?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 88.3 versus 76.7. Inside this category, CharXiv 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 Sonnet 5
API / mo$9,000
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

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