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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) vs Claude Sonnet 4.6

Updated July 29, 2026. Public scores include evidence status and uncertainty. They are not guarantees for a specific workload.

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

Anthropic

63.4/100

Estimated · Public rank #38

90% interval 51.9–75.0

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Anthropic

64.3/100

Supported · Public rank #35

90% interval 52.0–76.7

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the higher public score estimate, 64.3 versus 63.44, but the 90% score intervals overlap. Treat that as a lead, not a settled winner.

1 results are shared. Category rows based on different benchmark sets are marked directional and do not name a winner.

Which one for your work

Recommendations appear only when a shared evidence basis or an explicit operating constraint supports the call. Secondary and unsupported use cases stay disclosed below the initial list.

  • Long documents

    Prompts that approach the documented context limit

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has the larger documented context window.

    Confidence: documented

Show secondary and unsupported calls

  • Coding work

    Code generation, repair, and software-engineering tasks

    Not enough matched evidence

    No shared weighted benchmark basis supports a winner.

    Confidence: limited

  • Agentic work

    Tool use, computer use, and multi-step task completion

    Not enough matched evidence

    No shared weighted benchmark basis supports a winner.

    Confidence: limited

  • Chat turn cost

    1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.

    Confidence: listed-rates

  • Cache-heavy agent loop cost

    200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    The page does not recommend a cost winner because at least one model cannot fit the stated workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.6 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has no comparable published API token rate.

    Confidence: rate-fallback

  • Repository review cost

    50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

    Not enough matched evidence

    A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.

    Confidence: listed-rates

What is actually comparable

Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results present for only one model describe coverage, not superiority.

Shared results
1
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) only
0
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
19
Like-for-like categories
0 / 8

Category results, on a stated basis

Each row states whether both averages use the same weighted benchmark set. Directional and not-comparable rows remain visible, but they never receive a winner in this template.

Agentic

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
65.2
Weighted basis
0 vs 2 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Coding

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
69.1
Weighted basis
0 vs 2 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Reasoning

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Not measured
Weighted basis
0 vs 0 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Knowledge

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
66.0
Weighted basis
0 vs 4 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Math

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
26.4
Weighted basis
0 vs 2 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Multilingual

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Not measured
Weighted basis
0 vs 0 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Multimodal

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
77.4
Weighted basis
0 vs 1 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Instruction following

Not comparable
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
Not measured
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Not measured
Weighted basis
0 vs 0 rows
Reading
Not comparable

Shape of the matched evidence

Only shared public evidence is shown. Sparse evidence stays a ruled list rather than being closed into a radar shape.

A shared-evidence shape is not available.

BenchLM does not draw a radar or infer missing axes when the matched evidence is too sparse.

What each workload costs

Three fixed token mixes turn per-token rates into comparable decisions. Each scenario states context fit and whether cached input had to fall back to the published list-input rate.

Chat turn

1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
API rate not published
Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 4.6
$0.0105
Fits in one request

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has no comparable published API token rate.

Repository review

50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
API rate not published
Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 4.6
$0.195
Fits in one request

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has no comparable published API token rate.

Cache-heavy agent loop

200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)
API rate not published
Fits in one request
Cached-input rate unavailable
Claude Sonnet 4.6
$0.81
Does not fit in one request
Cached input priced at the published list-input rate

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does not fit this workload in one request. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has no comparable published API token rate.

Specification differences

Sourced differences are shown directly. Missing facts stay explicit instead of being inferred from a model name or family.

Context window

Maximum documented context; output-token limits may be lower.

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

1M

Anthropic model overview

Claude Sonnet 4.6

200K

Cached-input rate

A missing cached-input rate falls back to the listed input rate only in the stated workload estimate.

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

No comparable hosted API rate

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Not published

Provider availability

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

Generally Available · Claude API

Anthropic model overview

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Not sourced

Reasoning profile

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

Reasoning

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Non-Reasoning

Weight access

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

Proprietary

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Proprietary

License

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

Proprietary

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Proprietary

Release date

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)

2026-02-01

Claude Sonnet 4.6

2026-02-01

If you already use one of these models
Deployment change
Both entries list Anthropic as the provider. Confirm endpoint, model ID, limits, and feature support before switching.
Quality signal
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the higher public score estimate, 64.3 versus 63.44, but the 90% score intervals overlap.
Workload cost
A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Context tradeoff
Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has the larger documented window (1M).

Run the same representative tasks against both endpoints before changing production traffic.

Benchmark evidence

The full public result ledger is available for audit without forcing a wide desktop table onto a phone.

Browse raw public benchmark evidence20 rows

Agentic

  • Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.659.1%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld-Verified

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.672.1%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Claw-Eval

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.667.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CyberGym

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.665.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Gert Labs

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.662.92%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld 2.0

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.68.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • JobBench

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.636.9%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Coding

  • Vibe Code Bench

    Shared source
    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)53.50%
    Claude Sonnet 4.651.48%

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) leads this result

  • SWE-bench Verified

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.679.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • SWE-Rebench

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.660.7%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • React Native Evals

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.680.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • cursorBench31

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.648.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierCode 1.1 Main

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.624.3%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Knowledge

  • GPQA

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.689.9%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • SuperGPQA

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.695%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MMLU-Pro

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.679.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.649%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Math

  • FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.632.400%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.68.300%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Multimodal

  • CharXiv

    Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)—
    Claude Sonnet 4.677.4%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the higher public score estimate, 64.3 versus 63.44, but the 90% score intervals overlap. The higher estimate is not a decisive winner because the uncertainty ranges overlap.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

The published evidence does not provide a shared weighted coding basis for both models, so BenchLM does not name a coding winner.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

The published evidence does not provide a shared weighted agentic tasks basis for both models, so BenchLM does not name a agentic tasks winner.

Which costs less, Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Both models do not have comparable published API token rates, so this page does not name a universal price winner.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) or Claude Sonnet 4.6?

Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive) has the larger documented context window: 1M, compared with 200K.

Related comparisons

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Last updated July 29, 2026

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