Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen3.8 27B benchmark

Name: Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen3.8 27B AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) and Qwen3.8 27B (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead by 200 points (1,598 vs 1,398; seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Opus 4.8 resolves 78.4% versus 58.8% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). Qwen3.8 27B streams faster (152 tok/s) while Qwen3.8 27B is the cheaper output token ($3.2/1M). Claude Opus 4.8 has the larger context window (1M tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.8

Prior Opus generation still billed at $5/$25. Kept as a compare baseline against Opus 5.

Elo 1,598$25/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop dated Aug 14 2026. Dense enough to self-host; not a frontier MoE.

Elo 1,398$3.1999999999999997/1M out

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Model A

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Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4.8 (6)vsQwen3.8 27B (4)

Claude Opus 4.8: 6W (60%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.8 27B: 4W (40%)

← Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.8 27B →

Claude Opus 4.8 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,598vs1,398

Coding Elo

1,604vs1,422

SWE-bench

78.4%vs58.8%

LiveBench

73.6%vs60.6%

GPQA Diamond

86.2%vs73.4%

Claude Opus 4.8: 5WQwen3.8 27B: 0W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

66 tok/svs152 tok/s

Time to first token

330 msvs140 ms

Claude Opus 4.8: 0WQwen3.8 27B: 2W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$25/1Mvs$3.2/1M

Input price

$5/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

1Mvs262k

Claude Opus 4.8: 1WQwen3.8 27B: 2W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageClaude Opus 4.8 4/6

Preference Elo

Claude Opus 4.8

200 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Qwen3.8 27B

86 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Qwen3.8 27B

$21.80/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+14%1,598

EloHigh is better

1,398

Code Elo

High is better

+13%1,604

Code EloHigh is better

1,422

LiveBench

High is better

+21%73.6%

LiveBenchHigh is better

60.6%

SWE-bench

High is better

+33%78.4%

SWE-benchHigh is better

58.8%

GPQA

High is better

+17%86.2%

GPQAHigh is better

73.4%

TTFT

Low is better

330 ms

TTFTLow is better

140 ms+136%

Speed

High is better

66 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

152 tok/s+130%

In $

Low is better

$5/1M

In $Low is better

$0.45/1M+1011%

Out $

Low is better

$25/1M

Out $Low is better

$3.2/1M+681%

Context

High is better

+281%1M

ContextHigh is better

262k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 88% with Qwen3.8 27B

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude Opus 4.8$550.00 / mo

In: $175.00Out: $375.00

Qwen3.8 27B$63.75 / mo

In: $15.75Out: $48.00

Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3.8 27B is estimated to save $486.25/month ($5,835/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Opus 4.8:Pick Claude Opus 4.8 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.8

Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).

High-volume chatQwen3.8 27B

Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27B

Lower TTFT (140 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.8

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.8	Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower TTFT (140 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.8	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.8	Claude Opus 4.8 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchAug 14, 2026

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop. Local/open-weight lists should see it. It will not win frontier-agents.

launchJun 20, 2026

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Opus 4.8 still bills $5/$25. We keep it so Opus 5 vs 4.8 is a real generation delta, not marketing.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4.8

Elo 1,598

LiveBench73.6%

SWE-bench78.4%

Speed66 tok/s

Output cost$25/1M

Alibaba

Qwen3.8 27B

Elo 1,398

LiveBench60.6%

SWE-bench58.8%

Speed152 tok/s

Output cost$3.2/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?: Claude Opus 4.8 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,598). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?: Claude Opus 4.8 leads SWE-bench at 78.4% vs 58.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Qwen3.8 27B output tokens are $3.2/1M versus $25/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?: Qwen3.8 27B has the lower time-to-first-token (140 ms vs 330 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Opus 4.8 accepts 1M tokens versus 262k.
Can I self-host either model?: Qwen3.8 27B is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.
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 Opus 4.8 and Qwen3.8 27B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Opus 4.8 matchups →|All Qwen3.8 27B matchups →

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 4.6 (previous opus)Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 5 (next opus)Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen 3 Max (previous qwen)Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8 Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.8 Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Qwen3.8 27B benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4.8 (6)vsQwen3.8 27B (4)

Claude Opus 4.8: 6W (60%)Overall: Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.8 27B: 4W (40%)

← Claude Opus 4.8Qwen3.8 27B →

Claude Opus 4.8 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,598vs1,398

Coding Elo

1,604vs1,422

SWE-bench

78.4%vs58.8%

LiveBench

73.6%vs60.6%

GPQA Diamond

86.2%vs73.4%

Claude Opus 4.8: 5WQwen3.8 27B: 0W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

66 tok/svs152 tok/s

Time to first token

330 msvs140 ms

Claude Opus 4.8: 0WQwen3.8 27B: 2W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$25/1Mvs$3.2/1M

Input price

$5/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

1Mvs262k

Claude Opus 4.8: 1WQwen3.8 27B: 2W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 4.8

Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).

High-volume chatQwen3.8 27B

Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27B

Lower TTFT (140 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 4.8

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4.8

Claude Opus 4.8 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 4.8	Higher SWE-bench (78.4%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower TTFT (140 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 4.8	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4.8	Claude Opus 4.8 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,598). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Claude Opus 4.8 leads SWE-bench at 78.4% vs 58.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Qwen3.8 27B output tokens are $3.2/1M versus $25/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B has the lower time-to-first-token (140 ms vs 330 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 accepts 1M tokens versus 262k.

Can I self-host either model?

Qwen3.8 27B is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.

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 Opus 4.8 and Qwen3.8 27B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 4.8

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Cast Your Matchup Vote

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 4.8

Qwen3.8 27B

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 4.8

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Keep Opus 4.8 on the board: a baseline, not a flagship

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 4.8

Qwen3.8 27B

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons