Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3 235B benchmark

Name: Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3 235B AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic) and Qwen3 235B (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Sonnet 4.5 is ahead by 84 points (1,524 vs 1,440; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Sonnet 4.5 resolves 70.1% versus 59.4% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Claude Sonnet 4.5 streams faster (88 tok/s) while Qwen3 235B is the cheaper output token ($1.82/1M). Claude Sonnet 4.5 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.

Share Analysis:

WhatsApp Telegram X / Post LinkedIn Reddit

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Workhorse Anthropic model: most of Opus coding quality at a mid-tier price.

Elo 1,524$15/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Open-weight Qwen3 mixture-of-experts.

Elo 1,440$1.8199999999999998/1M out

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Instant pairwise benchmark recalculation across 400+ LLMs

Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs GPT-5

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (8)vsQwen3 235B (2)

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 8W (80%)Overall: Claude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3 235B: 2W (20%)

← Claude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3 235B →

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,524vs1,440

Coding Elo

1,531vs—

SWE-bench

70.1%vs59.4%

LiveBench

67.4%vs63.5%

GPQA Diamond

80.2%vs76.8%

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 5WQwen3 235B: 0W

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

88 tok/svs74 tok/s

Time to first token

240 msvs320 ms

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 2WQwen3 235B: 0W

Qwen3 235B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$15/1Mvs$1.82/1M

Input price

$3/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

1Mvs131k

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 1WQwen3 235B: 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 Sonnet 4.5 5/6

Preference Elo

Claude Sonnet 4.5

84 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Sonnet 4.5

14 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Qwen3 235B

$13.18/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+6%1,524

EloHigh is better

1,440

Code Elo

High is better

1,531

Code EloHigh is better

—

LiveBench

High is better

+6%67.4%

LiveBenchHigh is better

63.5%

SWE-bench

High is better

+18%70.1%

SWE-benchHigh is better

59.4%

GPQA

High is better

+4%80.2%

GPQAHigh is better

76.8%

TTFT

Low is better

+33%240 ms

TTFTLow is better

320 ms

Speed

High is better

+19%88 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

74 tok/s

In $

Low is better

$3/1M

In $Low is better

$0.45/1M+559%

Out $

Low is better

$15/1M

Out $Low is better

$1.82/1M+724%

Context

High is better

+663%1M

ContextHigh is better

131k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 87% with Qwen3 235B

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 4.5$330.00 / mo

In: $105.00Out: $225.00

Qwen3 235B$43.22 / mo

In: $15.92Out: $27.30

Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3 235B is estimated to save $286.78/month ($3,441/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Sonnet 4.5:Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Qwen3 235B:Pick Qwen3 235B when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Claude Sonnet 4.5:Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 4.5

Higher SWE-bench (70.1%).

High-volume chatQwen3 235B

Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 4.5

Lower TTFT (240 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4.5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Higher SWE-bench (70.1%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3 235B	Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Lower TTFT (240 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchFeb 18, 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the previous workhorse — still a valid vs baseline

Most of Opus 4.5 coding at a mid-tier price. Sonnet 5 replaced it as the buy; 4.5 remains a compare baseline.

launchSep 20, 2025

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Sep 2025 open-weight mixture-of-experts. Self-host path. Don’t confuse it with Qwen 3 Max.

Community Sentiment

Cast Your Matchup Vote

0 total votes

Community Discussions (0)

No comments posted on this matchup yet. Be the first to share an evaluation note!

Share card

The real PNG is generated at /compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-vs-qwen-3-235b/opengraph-image for crawlers.

PNG

CompareLLM Matrix

Verified head-to-head card

LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Elo 1,524

LiveBench67.4%

SWE-bench70.1%

Speed88 tok/s

Output cost$15/1M

Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Elo 1,440

LiveBench63.5%

SWE-bench59.4%

Speed74 tok/s

Output cost$1.82/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?: Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,524). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?: Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads SWE-bench at 70.1% vs 59.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Qwen3 235B output tokens are $1.82/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?: Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower time-to-first-token (240 ms vs 320 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Sonnet 4.5 accepts 1M tokens versus 131k.
Can I self-host either model?: Qwen3 235B 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 Sonnet 4.5 and Qwen3 235B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Sonnet 4.5 matchups →|All Qwen3 235B matchups →

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4 (previous sonnet)Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 (next sonnet)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (previous qwen)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen QwQ 32B (next qwen)Qwen 3 Max vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 Qwen QwQ 32B vs Claude Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Qwen3 235B benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (8)vsQwen3 235B (2)

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 8W (80%)Overall: Claude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3 235B: 2W (20%)

← Claude Sonnet 4.5Qwen3 235B →

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,524vs1,440

Coding Elo

1,531vs—

SWE-bench

70.1%vs59.4%

LiveBench

67.4%vs63.5%

GPQA Diamond

80.2%vs76.8%

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 5WQwen3 235B: 0W

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

88 tok/svs74 tok/s

Time to first token

240 msvs320 ms

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 2WQwen3 235B: 0W

Qwen3 235B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$15/1Mvs$1.82/1M

Input price

$3/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

1Mvs131k

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 1WQwen3 235B: 2W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 4.5

Higher SWE-bench (70.1%).

High-volume chatQwen3 235B

Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 4.5

Lower TTFT (240 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4.5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Higher SWE-bench (70.1%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3 235B	Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Lower TTFT (240 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Sonnet 4.5	Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,524). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads SWE-bench at 70.1% vs 59.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Qwen3 235B output tokens are $1.82/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Qwen3 235B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower time-to-first-token (240 ms vs 320 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 accepts 1M tokens versus 131k.

Can I self-host either model?

Qwen3 235B 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 Sonnet 4.5 and Qwen3 235B 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 Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Qwen3 235B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the previous workhorse — still a valid vs baseline

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Qwen3 235B

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 Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Qwen3 235B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the previous workhorse — still a valid vs baseline

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Qwen3 235B

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons