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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Qwen3.6 Plus

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
0.1pts
← winning
65.2/100
4 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 5 #29 (Estimated); Qwen3.6 Plus #30 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 5 and Qwen3.6 Plus share 21 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 15 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 5; 39 to Qwen3.6 Plus.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
21
Claude Sonnet 5 only
15
Qwen3.6 Plus only
39
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6 Plus only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

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 has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 65.32 versus 65.2. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Claude Sonnet 5's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 81.9 against 61.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 57.4% to 28.8%.

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 Plus
CategoryClaude Sonnet 5ΔQwen3.6 Plus
AgenticClaude Sonnet 581.9Margin← 20.3Qwen3.6 Plus61.6
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 588.3Margin← 8.5Qwen3.6 Plus79.8
CodingClaude Sonnet 576.7Margin← 6.4Qwen3.6 Plus70.3
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 557.4Margin← 0.3Qwen3.6 Plus57.1
ReasoningClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6 Plus62.0
MathClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6 Plus60.5
MultilingualClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6 Plus84.7
Inst. FollowingClaude Sonnet 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6 Plus82.3

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Sonnet 5B · Qwen3.6 Plus

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.4%B 28.8%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 28.6
    HLE: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 57.4%; Qwen3.6 Plus scored 28.8%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  2. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 80.4%B 61.6%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 18.8
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 80.4%; Qwen3.6 Plus scored 61.6%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  3. CharXiv

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 88.3%B 81.5%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 6.8
    CharXiv: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 88.3%; Qwen3.6 Plus scored 81.5%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  4. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 63.2%B 56.6%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 6.6
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 63.2%; Qwen3.6 Plus scored 56.6%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 85.2%B 78.8%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 6.4
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Sonnet 5 scored 85.2%; Qwen3.6 Plus scored 78.8%. 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 PlusComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Sonnet 5$2 input / $10 outputQwen3.6 PlusNot availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.6 PlusNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Sonnet 5Not availableQwen3.6 PlusNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Sonnet 51MQwen3.6 Plus1MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 80.4%61.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.7%—Not comparable
HLE w/ toolsSource 57.4%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 81.2%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 16071135Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA Agentic IndexSource 46.7%27.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
GDPval-AASource 55.4%31.8%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 —58.8%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource —57.2%Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource —70.7%Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource —44.3%Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource —41.5%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource —39.8%Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource —48.2%Not comparable
MCP-TasksSource —74.1%Not comparable
WideResearchSource —74.3%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource —97.7%Not comparable
Gert LabsSource —50.60%Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource —18.0%Not comparable
CodingClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 85.2%78.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 63.2%56.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 78.3%73.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
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%54.5%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.6%40.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
LiveCodeBench v6Source —87.1%Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource —25.56%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
AA-LCRSource 70.7%69.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CritPtSource 16.9%2.9%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AI-NeedleSource —68.3%Not comparable
LongBench v2Source —62%Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
HLESource 57.4%28.8%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 43.2%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 53.4%39.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 91.1%88.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-HLESource 39.6%25.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 15.3%2.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 38.3%26.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 37.3%32.0%Qwen3.6 Plus leads
GPQASource —90.4%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource —71.6%Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource —88.5%Not comparable
MMLU-ReduxSource —94.5%Not comparable
C-EvalSource —93.3%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
AIME26Source —95.3%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source —96.7%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source —94.6%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source —87.8%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource —83.8%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source —26.207%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source —8.333%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
MMLU-ProXSource —84.7%Not comparable
NOVA-63Source —57.9%Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
CharXivSource 88.3%81.5%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 77%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 77.3%78.0%Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 13141249Claude Sonnet 5 leads
MMMUSource —86.0%Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource —78.8%Not comparable
MathVisionSource —88.0%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource —84.0%Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource —68.2%Not comparable
V*Source —96.9%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Qwen3.6 PlusResult
IFEvalSource —94.3%Not comparable
IFBenchSource —75.8%Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource —75.2%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6 Plus?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 65.32 to 65.2. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 57.4% and 28.8%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6 Plus?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 57.4 versus 57.1. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 5 or Qwen3.6 Plus?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.7 versus 70.3. 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 Qwen3.6 Plus?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.9 versus 61.6. 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 Plus?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 88.3 versus 79.8. Inside this category, Design Arena Website is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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