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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.6

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 27 shared benchmark results across 7 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

64.22/100
Margin
0.8pts
winning →
65.07/100
2 category wins3 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.5 #34 (Supported); Claude Sonnet 4.6 #32 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 share 27 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 32 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.5; 6 to Claude Sonnet 4.6.

Updated July 20, 2026
Shared results
27
Claude Opus 4.5 only
32
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
6
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Opus 4.5 only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 27 shared benchmark results across 7 evidence categories; 5 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 65.07 versus 64.22. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Claude Sonnet 4.6's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 66 against 58.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SuperGPQA, 70.6% to 95%. Claude Opus 4.5 does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.5 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 Sonnet 4.6.

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 4.5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6
CategoryClaude Opus 4.5ΔClaude Sonnet 4.6
MathClaude Opus 4.557.5Margin← 31.1Claude Sonnet 4.626.4
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.558.1Margin→ 7.9Claude Sonnet 4.666.0
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.569.9Margin→ 7.5Claude Sonnet 4.677.4
CodingClaude Opus 4.571.7Margin← 2.6Claude Sonnet 4.669.1
AgenticClaude Opus 4.562.6Margin→ 2.6Claude Sonnet 4.665.2
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.564.4MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.6Not measured
MultilingualClaude Opus 4.585.7MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.6Not measured
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 4.569.5MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.6Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.5B · Claude Sonnet 4.6

  1. SuperGPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 70.6%B 95%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 24.4
    SuperGPQA: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 70.6%; Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 95%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 30.8%B 49%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 18.2
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 30.8%; Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 49%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  3. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 20.690%B 32.400%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 11.7
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Opus 4.5 scored 20.690%; Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 32.400%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  4. MMLU-Pro

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 89.5%B 79.2%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 10.3
    MMLU-Pro: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 89.5%; Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 79.2%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.

  5. CharXiv

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 68.5%B 77.4%
    Winner: Claude Sonnet 4.6Δ 8.9
    CharXiv: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 68.5%; Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 77.4%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.5$5 input / $25 outputClaude Sonnet 4.6$3 input / $15 outputClaude Sonnet 4.6 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.546 tok/sClaude Sonnet 4.644 tok/sClaude Opus 4.5 has the higher measured throughput.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.51.01 sClaude Sonnet 4.61.48 sClaude Opus 4.5 reaches the first token sooner.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.5200KClaude Sonnet 4.6200KListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Sonnet 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%59.1%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 66.3%72.1%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
OSWorldSource 66.3%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 59.6%67.8%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
QwenClawBenchSource 52.3%—Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource 70.2%—Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource 23.3%—Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource 26.4%—Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 43.5%—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 42.3%—Not comparable
MCP-TasksSource 71.8%—Not comparable
WideResearchSource 76.4%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 50.6%65.2%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
τ²-bench resultsSource 86.3%79.5%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
Gert LabsSource 64.23%62.92%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
JobBenchSource 32.3%36.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
OSWorld 2.0Source —8.3%Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.9%79.6%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
LiveCodeBench v6Source 84.8%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 57.1%—Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 77.5%—Not comparable
NL2RepoSource 43.2%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 47.0%46.9%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
SWE-RebenchSource —60.7%Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource —80.6%Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource —51.48%Not comparable
cursorBench31Source —48.8%Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource —24.3%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
LongBench v2Source 64.4%—Not comparable
AI-NeedleSource 74%—Not comparable
AA-LCRSource 65.3%57.7%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
CritPtSource 0.3%0.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
GPQASource 87%89.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
SuperGPQASource 70.6%95%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
MMLU-ProSource 89.5%79.2%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
MMLU-ReduxSource 96.6%—Not comparable
C-EvalSource 92.2%—Not comparable
HLESource 30.8%49%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 34.7%35.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 81.0%79.9%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
AA-HLESource 12.9%13.2%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -3.9%-2.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 40.7%38.0%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 75.4%65.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
AA MMLU-ProSource 88.9%—Not comparable
MathClaude Opus 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
AIME26Source 95.1%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source 92.9%—Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source 93.3%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 85.3%—Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 84.0%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 20.690%32.400%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 4.167%8.300%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
MMLU-ProXSource 85.7%—Not comparable
NOVA-63Source 56.7%—Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
MMMU-ProSource 70.6%—Not comparable
MathVisionSource 74.3%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 68.5%77.4%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
VideoMMMUSource 84.4%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 45.7%—Not comparable
V*Source 67.0%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 71.2%70.6%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 12791317Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6Result
IFEvalSource 90.9%—Not comparable
IFBenchSource 58%—Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource 43.0%41.2%Claude Opus 4.5 leads
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 65.07 to 64.22. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SuperGPQA, where the scores are 70.6% and 95%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 66 versus 58.1. Inside this category, SuperGPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 71.7 versus 69.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 57.5 versus 26.4. Inside this category, FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.2 versus 62.6. Inside this category, CyberGym is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.4 versus 69.9. Inside this category, Design Arena Website is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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