Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude 4 Sonnet
50
Claude Opus 4.6
87
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude 4 Sonnet unranked · Claude Opus 4.6 #6
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 or you want the cheaper token bill.
Coding
+8.3 difference
Claude 4 Sonnet
Claude Opus 4.6
$3 / $15
$5 / $25
40 t/s
40 t/s
1.33s
1.78s
200K
1M
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 or you want the cheaper token bill.
Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 87 to 50. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Opus 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude 4 Sonnet. Claude Opus 4.6 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude 4 Sonnet.
Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 87 to 50. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 72.7% and 80.8%.
Claude 4 Sonnet has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72.7 versus 64.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench Hard is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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