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© 2026 CompareLLM. Public benchmark data aggregated from Arena Elo, LiveBench, SWE-bench & OpenRouter.

Every score has a dated snapshot.

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  3. Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)

Claude Sonnet 4 vs Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B benchmark

In this head-to-head showdown, Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B is more budget-friendly at $0.15/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Choose Claude Sonnet 4 if your priority is peak reasoning, complex code generation, and top preference Elo. Choose Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B if you are optimizing for low latency, high throughput, and cost-efficient API deployment.
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Executive Verdict Summary

Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B holds empirical advantage (2 of 3 metrics)

Coding / SWESWE-bench
Claude Sonnet 4Top code solve rate
ReasoningGPQA / Live
Claude Sonnet 4Top logical accuracy
Best Value$/1M Tok
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9BLowest API billing cost
Speed / TokTok/Sec
Claude Sonnet 4Fastest stream rate

Verified Advantage Breakdown

3 benchmarks evaluated across capability, speed, and cost

Claude Sonnet 4 (1)Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B (2)
Claude Sonnet 4
1 of 3 Wins
✓Context window
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B
2 of 3 Wins
✓Input price✓Output price
Anthropic
Leads 1 of 3
Claude Sonnet 4

First Sonnet 4 generation. Bridge between 3.5/3.7 and Sonnet 5.

Elo 1,455In: $3 · Out: $15/1M
Alibaba
Leads 2 of 3
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B

Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (qwen/qwen3.5-9b). Preview until a second source matches.

In: $0.1 · Out: $0.15/1M
Top Rival Showdowns for Claude Sonnet 4
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs Grok 4.6vs DeepSeek V4 Provs Qwen 3 Max
Preference Leader

No shared data

Single model data

Throughput Leader

No shared data

No latency data

Value per Dollar LeaderQwen: Qwen3.5-9B Wins

Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B

$0.15 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Leaders Matchup Capability Radar

Comparing top standard models across 6 key capability dimensions. Tap any spoke or dot to inspect.

Tap any node to inspect
0–100 %ile

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

Claude Sonnet 4 (8)vsQwen: Qwen3.5-9B (2)
Claude Sonnet 4: 8W (80%)Overall: Claude Sonnet 4Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B: 2W (20%)
← Claude Sonnet 4Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B →
🏆Claude Sonnet 4 Leads(5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Benchmark
Claude Sonnet 4vsQwen: Qwen3.5-9B
Preference Elo
1,455vs—
Coding Elo
1,468vs—
SWE-bench
62.8%vs—
LiveBench
63.2%vs—
GPQA Diamond
76.4%vs—
Claude Sonnet 4: 5WQwen: Qwen3.5-9B: 0W
🏆Claude Sonnet 4 Leads(2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Benchmark
Claude Sonnet 4vsQwen: Qwen3.5-9B
Output speed
92 tok/svs—
Time to first token
220 msvs—
Claude Sonnet 4: 2WQwen: Qwen3.5-9B: 0W
🏆Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B Leads(2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Benchmark
Claude Sonnet 4vsQwen: Qwen3.5-9B
Output price
$15/1Mvs$0.15/1M+$14.85/1M
Input price
$3/1Mvs$0.1/1M+$2.9/1M
Context window
1Mvs262k+738k
Claude Sonnet 4: 1WQwen: Qwen3.5-9B: 2W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Claude Sonnet 4Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B
Preference Elo
Claude Sonnet 41,455
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
Coding Elo
Claude Sonnet 41,468
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
LiveBench
Claude Sonnet 463.2%
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
SWE-bench
Claude Sonnet 462.8%
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
GPQA Diamond
Claude Sonnet 476.4%
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
Time to first token
Claude Sonnet 4220 ms
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
Output speed
Claude Sonnet 492 tok/s
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B—
Input priceQwen: Qwen3.5-9B +$2.9/1M
Claude Sonnet 4$3/1M
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B$0.1/1M
Output priceQwen: Qwen3.5-9B +$14.85/1M
Claude Sonnet 4$15/1M
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B$0.15/1M
Context windowClaude Sonnet 4 +738k
Claude Sonnet 41M
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B262k
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Qwen: Qwen3.5-9BAdvantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,455
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
——
Coding Elo
1,468
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
——
LiveBench
63.2%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
——
SWE-bench
62.8%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
——
GPQA Diamond
76.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Time to first token
220 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Output speed
92 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
——
Input price
$3/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
$0.1/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+$2.9/1M
Output price
$15/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
$0.15/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+$14.85/1M
Context window
1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
262k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
+738k

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save 98% with Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
Claude Sonnet 4$330.00 / mo
In: $105Out: $225
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B$5.75 / mo
In: $3.5Out: $2.25
Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B is estimated to save $324.25/month ($3,891/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B:Pick Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B when you are optimizing output cost.
  • 2
    Claude Sonnet 4:Pick Claude Sonnet 4 for million-token RAG or long-document jobs.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatQwen: Qwen3.5-9B

Lower output list price ($0.15/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4

Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsinsufficient dataNeed SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chatQwen: Qwen3.5-9BLower output list price ($0.15/1M).
Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient dataNeed TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

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CompareLLM AI Matrix

Verified Head-to-Head Telemetry

LIVE BENCHMARK
VS
Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4

Elo 1,455
SWE-bench62.8%
Speed (tok/s)92 tok/s
Input / 1M Tokens$3/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$15/1M
Alibaba

Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B

Elo n/a
SWE-bench—
Speed (tok/s)262k
Input / 1M Tokens$0.1/1M
Output / 1M Tokens$0.15/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B?
We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.
Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B?
SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B output tokens are $0.15/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4 or Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B?
We do not have TTFT for both models.
Which has the larger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4 accepts 1M tokens versus 262k.
Can I self-host either model?
Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?
No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?
Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Sonnet 4 and Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Sonnet 4 matchups →|All Qwen: Qwen3.5-9B matchups →
Claude Sonnet 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet (previous sonnet)Claude Sonnet 4 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 (next sonnet)Qwen 3 Max vs Claude Sonnet 4Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4