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Claude 4.1 Opus vs Claude Sonnet 4.6

Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

Claude 4.1 Opus

53

VS

Claude Sonnet 4.6

85

1 categoriesvs0 categories

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.

Category Radar

Head-to-Head by Category

Category Breakdown

Coding

Claude 4.1 Opus
74.5vs66.4

+8.1 difference

Operational Comparison

Claude 4.1 Opus

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Price (per 1M tokens)

$null / $null

$3 / $15

Speed

29 t/s

44 t/s

Latency (TTFT)

1.66s

1.48s

Context Window

200K

200K

Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 85 to 53. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude 4.1 Opus or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 53. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 74.5% and 79.6%.

Which is better for coding, Claude 4.1 Opus or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude 4.1 Opus has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 74.5 versus 66.4. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: April 20, 2026

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