Qwen3.8-Max vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Q: What are the key differences between Qwen3.8-Max and GPT-5.6 Sol?

Qwen3.8-Max (alibaba) and GPT-5.6 Sol (openai) differ in price, context, and capability.

Qwen3.8-Max and GPT-5.6 Sol: current price, context, max output, and supported operations.

Which one to choose

Pick Qwen3.8-Max for long autonomous coding sessions and for inputs that include video or documents alongside images. Pick GPT-5.6 Sol for complex professional and scientific work that needs schema-checked JSON and adjustable reasoning effort. Sol belongs to a family OpenAI now lists as legacy, with GPT-6 recommended for new builds, so choose it mainly to keep an existing GPT-5.6 setup rather than to start a new one.

Pricing comparison

	Qwen3.8-Max	GPT-5.6 Sol
Model maker	Alibaba Cloud	OpenAI
Delivery availability	Available	Available
Context window	992K	1.05M
Max output	128K	128K
Official price	Input$2.00per 1M tokensOutput$6.00per 1M tokens	Input$4.00per 1M tokensOutput$20.00per 1M tokens
TokenLab price	—	Input$1.20per 1M tokensOutput$6.00per 1M tokens
Model performance	Collecting data	30-day success rate 86.6% 7-day median latency 18 sn=2,418
Capabilities	JSON modePrompt CacheTool useVision	CodeJSON modePrompt CacheReasoningTool useVision

Choose Qwen3.8-Max when

You want an agent to keep iterating on code for very long sessions without a person steering each step.
Your inputs include video and office documents as well as images.
You are comparing a hosted flagship with an open-weight sibling and want the same model family on both sides.

Choose GPT-5.6 Sol when

You already run GPT-5.6 and need its behaviour to stay the same.
You need a request to read a diagram and return JSON that is checked against a schema.
You want to spend reasoning effort on hard turns and keep easy ones cheap in time.

How they differ

Aspect	Qwen3.8-Max	GPT-5.6 Sol
Main target	Alibaba positions it for autonomous coding, professional office work and long-horizon agent tasks.	OpenAI positions Sol as the top of the GPT-5.6 family for complex professional work, scientific analysis, coding and long agent runs.
Video and documents	Accepts video and documents with images and text.	Reads text and images.
Structured output	Supports structured JSON output and tool use for agent frameworks.	Returns JSON checked against a schema, and can combine that with image input in one request.
Reasoning dial	Thinking is part of the model; Alibaba describes long-running autonomous work rather than an effort setting.	Reasoning effort is adjustable per request.
Lifecycle	Alibaba's current proprietary flagship of the Qwen3.8 generation.	Part of the GPT-5.6 family, which OpenAI's model guidance now lists as legacy in favour of GPT-6.

Summary

Qwen3.8-Max: Input $2.00 / Output $6.00 per 1M tokens; GPT-5.6 Sol: Input $1.20 / Output $6.00 per 1M tokens. Rates depend on the billing unit, specification, and usage. Compare matching conditions in the model's detailed pricing; a single rate does not determine the total cost.

Qwen3.8-Max

Qwen 3 / QwQ

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GPT-5.6 Sol

GPT 5.6

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FAQ

Is Qwen3.8-Max better than GPT-5.6 Sol for coding?

Alibaba targets autonomous, multi-day coding with Qwen3.8-Max, and OpenAI targets complex coding with Sol. Run both on your own repository; the better one depends on session length and how much you need schema-checked output.

Which one handles video?

Qwen3.8-Max accepts video input. GPT-5.6 Sol reads text and images, so a video has to be reduced to frames before you send it. Frame extraction is a simple step.

Is GPT-5.6 Sol still the recommended OpenAI model?

No. OpenAI's guidance points new projects to GPT-6 and lists the GPT-5.6 family as legacy. Sol remains a fit for workloads already built on GPT-5.6.

Is Qwen3.8-Max open source?

No. It is a proprietary hosted model. Alibaba publishes a separate open-weight sibling, Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B, which leaves out the multimodal input of the hosted model. Pick the sibling only if you need weights.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8-Max or GPT-5.6 Sol?

Qwen3.8-Max: Input $2.00 / Output $6.00 per 1M tokens; GPT-5.6 Sol: Input $1.20 / Output $6.00 per 1M tokens. Rates depend on the billing unit, specification, and usage. Compare matching conditions in the model's detailed pricing; a single rate does not determine the total cost.

What are the key differences between Qwen3.8-Max and GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol: Code, Reasoning

Sources

Reviewed Oct 2, 2026