Model comparison

Claude Mythos 5.1 vs Qwen3-Max

Anthropic against Qwen, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 3, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: Medium — see receipts below

Anthropic

Claude Mythos 5.1

Frontier

Qwen

Qwen3-Max

Frontier

AI model capability comparison
Specification	Claude Mythos 5.1	Qwen3-Max
Provider	Anthropic	Qwen
Tier	Frontier	Frontier
Context window	Not verifiedUnverified	262K
Max output	Not verifiedUnverified	66K
Input / 1M tokens	$10	Winner: $1.20
Output / 1M tokens	$50	Winner: $6
Weights	Closed	Closed
Parameters	cyber/bio research variant of Fable 5.1	1T (proprietary)
Reasoning levels	adaptive	low, high, max
Modalities	text, image	text, image, video
API model id	claude-mythos-5	qwen3-max
Released	September 1, 2026	September 23, 2025
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-08-14)	Not verifiedUnverified	52

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

2026-08-14: Artificial AnalysisComposite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score. Comparability: directly comparable — AA occasionally rebaselines the index scale between snapshots — a score captured on one date is only comparable to same-snapshot scores (check measuredAt).

Pricing tiers: Claude Mythos 5.1: Starts at $10/$50 per MTok — priced with Fable 5.1, which shares the same underlying model. API id claude-mythos-5 replaced the deprecated claude-mythos-preview. · Qwen3-Max: Qwen API $1.20/$6.00 per MTok (≤32K); higher tiers for 32K–256K. OpenRouter lists ~$0.78/$3.90. Proprietary, API-only.

FrontierRecord checked September 3, 2026

Claude Mythos 5.1

Claude Mythos 5.1 is Anthropic's most capable model for cybersecurity and biology research — the Fable 5.1 model with fewer cyber/bio safeguards, restricted to vetted US organisations.

Best for

Cyber-defence research
Biology research
Claude Security workloads

Watch out

Invite-only (vetted US organisations, verification programmes); 30-day data retention applies by default. Same underlying model as Fable 5.1 — most teams should just use Fable.

FrontierRecord checked September 3, 2026

Qwen3-Max

Qwen3-Max is Alibaba's proprietary 1-trillion-parameter API model with multimodal input.

Best for

Agentic coding
Multimodal knowledge work
Long-context via API

Watch out

Max line is proprietary/API-only (no published weights). Per-provider prices differ.

When the cheaper one wins

Qwen3-Max is cheaper on output at $6 per million tokens against $50 for Claude Mythos 5.1 — about 8.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: Medium

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: context window, max output.
No shared named benchmark — No benchmark has been measured on both models.
Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 8 days ago.
Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Claude Mythos 5.1: Anthropic — Claude Mythos (accessed 2026-09-03)
Claude Mythos 5.1: Anthropic — model deprecations (claude-mythos-5) (accessed 2026-09-03)
Qwen3-Max: OpenRouter — Qwen3-Max (accessed 2026-08-29)
Qwen3-Max: AI Release Tracker — Qwen3-Max (accessed 2026-08-29)

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? Claude Mythos 5.1 · Qwen3-Max

Common questions

Claude Mythos 5.1 vs Qwen3-Max

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is Claude Mythos 5.1 or Qwen3-Max cheaper for input?

Qwen3-Max is cheaper at $1.20 per million input tokens, against $10 for Claude Mythos 5.1 — roughly 8.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Mythos 5.1 has tiered pricing: Starts at $10/$50 per MTok — priced with Fable 5.1, which shares the same underlying model. API id claude-mythos-5 replaced the deprecated claude-mythos-preview. Qwen3-Max has tiered pricing: Qwen API $1.20/$6.00 per MTok (≤32K); higher tiers for 32K–256K. OpenRouter lists ~$0.78/$3.90. Proprietary, API-only.

Is Claude Mythos 5.1 or Qwen3-Max cheaper for output?

Qwen3-Max is cheaper at $6 per million output tokens, against $50 for Claude Mythos 5.1 — roughly 8.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; Claude Mythos 5.1 has tiered pricing: Starts at $10/$50 per MTok — priced with Fable 5.1, which shares the same underlying model. API id claude-mythos-5 replaced the deprecated claude-mythos-preview. Qwen3-Max has tiered pricing: Qwen API $1.20/$6.00 per MTok (≤32K); higher tiers for 32K–256K. OpenRouter lists ~$0.78/$3.90. Proprietary, API-only.

Do Claude Mythos 5.1 and Qwen3-Max support the same reasoning levels?

Claude Mythos 5.1 exposes adaptive, while Qwen3-Max exposes low, high, max.

Should I use Claude Mythos 5.1 or Qwen3-Max?

Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. Claude Mythos 5.1 suits cyber-defence research; Qwen3-Max suits agentic coding.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

Input price: Qwen3-Max costs $1.20 per 1M tokens versus $10 for Claude Mythos 5.1 — a 8.3x difference at the headline tier.

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