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Claude 4 Sonnet vs Claude Opus 4.6

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

Claude 4 Sonnet

52

VS

Claude Opus 4.6

91

1 categoriesvs0 categories

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude 4 Sonnet unranked · Claude Opus 4.6 #3

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.

Category Radar

Head-to-Head by Category

Category Breakdown

Coding

Claude 4 Sonnet
72.7vs64.4

+8.3 difference

Operational Comparison

Claude 4 Sonnet

Claude Opus 4.6

Price (per 1M tokens)

$null / $null

$5 / $25

Speed

40 t/s

40 t/s

Latency (TTFT)

1.33s

1.78s

Context Window

200K

1M

Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.

Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 91 to 52. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.6 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude 4 Sonnet.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude 4 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 91 to 52. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 72.7% and 80.8%.

Which is better for coding, Claude 4 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?

Claude 4 Sonnet has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72.7 versus 64.4. 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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