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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Claude Haiku 4.5

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B comes out ahead, 65 to 58 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

  2. Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    58/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.00 / $5.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 4.5

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is our pick

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 65/100 against Claude Haiku 4.5 (58). It leads on capability, price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 397B-A17BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 · Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 397B-A17BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 397B-A17BClaude Haiku 4.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7469
Price25%4436
Inputs & features15%9080
Context window10%3732
Overall100%65/10058/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Claude Haiku 4.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.7 (best)142.4
ECI rank#67 of 148 (best)#90 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions86.4% (best)71.2%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics31.2%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics88.9% (best)66.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—13.2%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.60 (best)$1.00
Output$3.60 (best)$5.00
Cached input—$0.10
Blended (3:1)$1.35 (best)$2.00
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Anthropic API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens (best)200,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens (best)64,000 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoYes
AudioYesNo
VideoYesNo
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesYes
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietary
API model IDqwen3.5-397b-a17bclaude-haiku-4-5
API providers2334 (best)
ReleasedFeb 15, 2026Oct 15, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Feb 28, 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
  • Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Claude Haiku 4.5?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 65/100 against Claude Haiku 4.5 (58). It leads on capability, price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Claude Haiku 4.5?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is cheaper at $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.35 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (1.5× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 (#67 of 148) and Claude Haiku 4.5 142.4 (#90 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (144.8–148.2 vs 139.5–144.3), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 86.4%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 88.9%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Claude Haiku 4.5 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts text, images, audio and video; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the newest, released Feb 15, 2026. Claude Haiku 4.5 came out Oct 15, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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