Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Claude Haiku 4.5 (2025) and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B (2026) are general-purpose language models from Anthropic and Alibaba. Claude Haiku 4.5 ships a 200k-token context window, while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ships a 262K-token context window. On BFCL, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B leads by 4.2 pts. On pricing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B costs $0.39/1M input tokens versus $0.8/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is ~105% cheaper at $0.39/1M; pay for Claude Haiku 4.5 only for coding workflow support.
Specs
| Released | 2025-10-01 | 2026-02-16 |
| Context window | 200k | 262K |
| Parameters | — | 397B |
| Architecture | decoder only | MoE |
| License | Proprietary | Apache 2.0 |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2025-02 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3.5-397B-A17B | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.8/1M tokens | $0.39/1M tokens |
| Output price | $4/1M tokens | $2.34/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3.5-397B-A17B | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3.5-397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| BFCL | 68.7 | 72.9 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, BFCL has Claude Haiku 4.5 at 68.7 and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B at 72.9, with Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ahead by 4.2 points. The largest visible gap is 4.2 points on BFCL, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint differs most on vision: Claude Haiku 4.5, function calling: Claude Haiku 4.5, tool use: Claude Haiku 4.5, and code execution: Claude Haiku 4.5. Both models share multimodal input and structured outputs, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
For cost, Claude Haiku 4.5 lists $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens, while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B lists $0.39/1M input and $2.34/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Qwen3.5-397B-A17B lower by about $0.78 per million blended tokens. Availability is 8 providers versus 1, so concentration risk also matters.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 when coding workflow support and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Qwen3.5-397B-A17B when long-context analysis, larger context windows, and lower input-token cost are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B supports 262K tokens, while Claude Haiku 4.5 supports 200k tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $0.8/1M input and $4/1M output tokens. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B costs $0.39/1M input and $2.34/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B open source?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is listed under Proprietary. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is listed under Apache 2.0. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for vision, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?
Claude Haiku 4.5 has the clearer documented vision signal in this comparison. If vision is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Which is better for multimodal input, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?
Both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B expose multimodal input. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface. Use this as a quick comparison signal, then confirm the provider-specific limits before committing to production.
Where can I run Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is available on Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, Snowflake Cortex, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is available on OpenRouter. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
Continue comparing
Last reviewed: 2026-04-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.