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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 5

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 19 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

68.59/100
Margin
3.3pts
← winning
65.32/100
1 category wins3 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #16 (Supported); Claude Sonnet 5 #29 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 5 share 19 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 27 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.6; 17 to Claude Sonnet 5.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
19
Claude Opus 4.6 only
27
Claude Sonnet 5 only
17
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 5 only becomes the better choice if multimodal & grounded is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 19 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 4 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 68.59 to 65.32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.6's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 69.1 against 57.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 65.4% to 80.4%. Claude Sonnet 5 does hit back in multimodal & grounded, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $2.00 input / $10.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Sonnet 5. That is roughly 2.5x on output cost alone. Claude Sonnet 5 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.6 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 5
CategoryClaude Opus 4.6ΔClaude Sonnet 5
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.669.1Margin← 11.7Claude Sonnet 557.4
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.677.3Margin→ 11.0Claude Sonnet 588.3
AgenticClaude Opus 4.673.0Margin→ 8.9Claude Sonnet 581.9
CodingClaude Opus 4.668.1Margin→ 8.6Claude Sonnet 576.7
MathClaude Opus 4.636.3MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 5Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.6B · Claude Sonnet 5

  1. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 65.4%B 80.4%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 15
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 65.4%; Claude Sonnet 5 scored 80.4%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  2. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 53.4%B 63.2%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 9.8
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 53.4%; Claude Sonnet 5 scored 63.2%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  3. OSWorld-Verified

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 72.7%B 81.2%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 8.5
    OSWorld-Verified: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 72.7%; Claude Sonnet 5 scored 81.2%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  4. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 53%B 57.4%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 4.4
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 53%; Claude Sonnet 5 scored 57.4%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 80.8%B 85.2%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 5Δ 4.4
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 80.8%; Claude Sonnet 5 scored 85.2%. Claude Sonnet 5 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.6$5 input / $25 outputClaude Sonnet 5$2 input / $10 outputClaude Sonnet 5 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.640 tok/sClaude Sonnet 5Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.61.78 sClaude Sonnet 5Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.61MClaude Sonnet 51MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 65.4%80.4%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
BrowseCompSource 83.7%84.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.7%81.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
τ²-bench resultsSource 84.8%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 70.4%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 73.7%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 66.6%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 61.85%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 19.9%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.7%—Not comparable
HLE w/ toolsSource —57.4%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1607Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —46.7%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —55.4%Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource —1388Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource —39.2%Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource —44.7%Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource —90.1%Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource —28.2%Not comparable
aaTerminalBench21Source —80.5%Not comparable
CodingClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.8%85.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE-bench Verified*Source 75.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench ProSource 70.7%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.4%63.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE-RebenchSource 65.3%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 84.1%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 57.57%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 45.7%53.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 26.9%42.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
SWE MultilingualSource —78.3%Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource —28.1%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —80.4%Not comparable
cursorBench32Source —61.5%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —71.5%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
AA-LCRSource 58.3%70.7%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
CritPtSource 2.8%16.9%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
GPQASource 91.3%—Not comparable
GPQA-DSource 89.2%—Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 82%—Not comparable
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source 89.1%—Not comparable
HLESource 53%57.4%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 40%43.2%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
HealthBench HardSource 14.8%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (Text)Source 52.1%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.8%53.4%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.0%91.1%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-HLESource 18.6%39.6%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 3.5%15.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 45.2%38.3%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 76.0%37.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
AIME25 (Arcee)Source 99.8%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 40.700%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 22.900%—Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
MMMU-ProSource 77.3%—Not comparable
ERQASource 51.6%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 83.1%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)Source 64.8%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 72.5%77.3%Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 13251314Claude Opus 4.6 leads
CharXivSource —88.3%Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource —77%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 5Result
AA-IFBenchSource 44.6%—Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 68.59 to 65.32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 65.4% and 80.4%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.1 versus 57.4. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.7 versus 68.1. Inside this category, FrontierCode 1.1 Main is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.9 versus 73. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 88.3 versus 77.3. Inside this category, Design Arena Website is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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