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BenchLM

Model comparison

Claude 4.1 Opus vs Claude Opus 4.8

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 3 shared benchmark results across 3 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

49/100
Margin
36.0pts
winning →
85/100
0 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude 4.1 Opus unranked; Claude Opus 4.8 #3

Evidence parity. Claude 4.1 Opus and Claude Opus 4.8 share 3 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 1 result is unique to Claude 4.1 Opus; 50 to Claude Opus 4.8.

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
3
Claude 4.1 Opus only
1
Claude Opus 4.8 only
50
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 3 shared benchmark results across 3 evidence categories; 1 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 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 85 to 49. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 76.4 against 74.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 74.5% to 88.6%.

Claude 4.1 Opus is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $75.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Opus 4.8. That is roughly 3.0x on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 4.1 Opus 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. Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude 4.1 Opus.

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 4.1 Opus and Claude Opus 4.8
CategoryClaude 4.1 OpusΔClaude Opus 4.8
CodingClaude 4.1 Opus74.5Margin→ 1.9Claude Opus 4.876.4
AgenticClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapClaude Opus 4.880.3
KnowledgeClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapClaude Opus 4.862.7
MathClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapClaude Opus 4.853.9
MultimodalClaude 4.1 OpusNot measuredMarginNo overlapClaude Opus 4.877.0

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude 4.1 OpusB · Claude Opus 4.8

  1. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 74.5%B 88.6%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 14.1
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude 4.1 Opus scored 74.5%; Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude 4.1 Opus$15 input / $75 outputClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputClaude Opus 4.8 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude 4.1 Opus29 tok/sClaude Opus 4.8Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude 4.1 Opus1.66 sClaude Opus 4.8Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude 4.1 Opus200KClaude Opus 4.81MClaude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
JobBenchSource 21.9%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —74.6%Not comparable
BrowseCompSource —84.3%Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource —93.1%Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource —83.4%Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source —53.9%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1600Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource —82.2%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource —59.9%Not comparable
Gert LabsSource —72.97%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —47.2%Not comparable
Tau2-TelecomSource —94.4%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —55.0%Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource —21.1%Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source —20.6%Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource —1354Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource —48.5%Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource —44.0%Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource —7.5%Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource —27.6%Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 74.5%88.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE-bench ProSource —69.2%Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource —84.4%Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource —38.4%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —74.6%Not comparable
cursorBench31Source —58.4%Not comparable
cursorBench32Source —62.3%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —74.3%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource —58.3%Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource —53.5%Not comparable
FrontierCodeSource —46.5%Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source —84.6%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
AA-LCRSource —67.7%Not comparable
CritPtSource —20.9%Not comparable
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 28.2%55.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GPQASource —93.6%Not comparable
GPQA-DSource —93.6%Not comparable
HLESource —57.9%Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource —49.8%Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource —92.0%Not comparable
AA-HLESource —45.7%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource —27.4%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource —46.6%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource —35.9%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
USAMO 2026Source —96.7%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source —47.241%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source —31.250%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
INCLUDESource —87.6%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
Design Arena WebsiteSource 12191281Claude Opus 4.8 leads
OfficeQA ProSource —66.2%Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource —87.9%Not comparable
CharXivSource —89.9%Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource —80.5%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude 4.1 OpusClaude Opus 4.8Result
AA-IFBenchSource —62.2%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude 4.1 Opus or Claude Opus 4.8?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 49. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 74.5% and 88.6%.

Which is better for coding, Claude 4.1 Opus or Claude Opus 4.8?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 74.5. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: July 12, 2026

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