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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 9 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

68.59/100
Margin
15.0pts
← winning
53.61/100
2 category wins2 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #16 (Supported); Claude Sonnet 4.5 #96 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 4.5 share 9 comparable benchmark results. 4 of 8 categories are comparable. 37 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.6; 3 to Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Updated July 20, 2026
Shared results
9
Claude Opus 4.6 only
37
Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
3
Comparable categories
4 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 4.5 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 9 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 4 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.6 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 68.59 to 53.61. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.6's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 36.3 against 11.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3), 40.700% to 13.495%. Claude Sonnet 4.5 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

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 Sonnet 4.5. Claude Opus 4.6 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.5.

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 4.6 and Claude Sonnet 4.5
CategoryClaude Opus 4.6ΔClaude Sonnet 4.5
MathClaude Opus 4.636.3Margin← 25.1Claude Sonnet 4.511.2
AgenticClaude Opus 4.673.0Margin← 17.6Claude Sonnet 4.555.4
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.669.1Margin→ 14.3Claude Sonnet 4.583.4
CodingClaude Opus 4.668.1Margin→ 9.1Claude Sonnet 4.577.2
ReasoningClaude Opus 4.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.513.6
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.677.3MarginNo overlapClaude Sonnet 4.5Not measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.6B · Claude Sonnet 4.5

  1. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 40.700%B 13.495%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 27.2
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Opus 4.6 scored 40.700%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 13.495%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 22.900%B 4.167%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 18.7
    FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4): Claude Opus 4.6 scored 22.900%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 4.167%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  3. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 65.4%B 50%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 15.4
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 65.4%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 50%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  4. OSWorld-Verified

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 72.7%B 61.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 11.3
    OSWorld-Verified: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 72.7%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 61.4%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  5. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 91.3%B 83.4%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 7.9
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 91.3%; Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 83.4%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.6$5 input / $25 outputClaude Sonnet 4.5$3 input / $15 outputClaude Sonnet 4.5 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.640 tok/sClaude Sonnet 4.5Not availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.61.78 sClaude Sonnet 4.5Not availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.61MClaude Sonnet 4.5200KClaude Opus 4.6 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 65.4%50%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
BrowseCompSource 83.7%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.7%61.4%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
τ²-bench resultsSource 84.8%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 70.4%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 73.7%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 66.6%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 61.85%48.51%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
ResearchClawBenchSource 19.9%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.7%27.7%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
VITA-BenchSource —17.0%Not comparable
CodingClaude Sonnet 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.8%77.2%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
SWE-bench Verified*Source 75.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench ProSource 70.7%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.4%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource 65.3%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 84.1%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 57.57%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 45.7%—Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 26.9%—Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
AA-LCRSource 58.3%—Not comparable
CritPtSource 2.8%—Not comparable
ARC-AGI-2Source —13.6%Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
GPQASource 91.3%83.4%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
GPQA-DSource 89.2%—Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 82%—Not comparable
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source 89.1%—Not comparable
HLESource 53%—Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 40%—Not comparable
HealthBench HardSource 14.8%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (Text)Source 52.1%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.8%—Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.0%—Not comparable
AA-HLESource 18.6%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 3.5%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 45.2%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 76.0%—Not comparable
MathClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
AIME25 (Arcee)Source 99.8%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 40.700%13.495%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 22.900%4.167%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AIME 2025Source —87%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
MMMU-ProSource 77.3%—Not comparable
ERQASource 51.6%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 83.1%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)Source 64.8%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 72.5%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 13281222Claude Opus 4.6 leads
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Claude Sonnet 4.5Result
AA-IFBenchSource 44.6%—Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

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

Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 68.59 to 53.61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3), where the scores are 40.700% and 13.495%.

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

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 69.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 68.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 36.3 versus 11.2. 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 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 4.5?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73 versus 55.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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