Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Qwen3-Coder-Next
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Anthropic · Apr 2026
Anthropic's mid-tier workhorse: near-Opus capability at $3/$15, and the leader on the Finance Agent benchmark.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Feb 2026
The 2026 open coding specialist: 70.6% SWE-bench Verified under Apache 2.0 from $0.11 per million input tokens.
The verdict
Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Coder-Next. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-Coder-Next works out roughly 21x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Qwen3-Coder-Next. And Qwen3-Coder-Next is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Qwen3-Coder-Next | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | — |
| Input price / 1M | $3 | $0.11 |
| Output price / 1M | $15 | $0.8 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | 66K |
| Open weights | no | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2026 | Nov 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Feb 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $52.50 | $2.30 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Coder-Next. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-Coder-Next works out roughly 21x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Qwen3-Coder-Next. And Qwen3-Coder-Next is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3/$15 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Coder-Next costs $0.11/$0.8. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $52.50 versus $2.30.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores ~79.6% versus 70.6% for Qwen3-Coder-Next, making Claude Sonnet 4.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.