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Model comparison

Claude Opus 5 vs Ling 2.6 Flash

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 13 shared benchmark results across 4 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

Anthropic
85.88/100
Margin
42.9pts
← winning
InclusionAI
42.99/100
2 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 5 #1 (Estimated); Ling 2.6 Flash #162 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 5 and Ling 2.6 Flash share 13 comparable benchmark results. 2 of 8 categories are comparable. 66 results are unique to Claude Opus 5; 5 to Ling 2.6 Flash.

Updated July 24, 2026
Shared results
13
Claude Opus 5 only
66
Ling 2.6 Flash only
5
Comparable categories
2 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ling 2.6 Flash only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 13 shared benchmark results across 4 evidence categories; 2 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 5 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 85.88 to 42.99. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 5's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 89.5 against 27.

Claude Opus 5 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ling 2.6 Flash is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

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 5 and Ling 2.6 Flash
CategoryClaude Opus 5ΔLing 2.6 Flash
CodingClaude Opus 589.5Margin 62.5Ling 2.6 Flash27.0
KnowledgeClaude Opus 564.7Margin 5.7Ling 2.6 Flash59.0
AgenticClaude Opus 590.8MarginNo overlapLing 2.6 FlashNot measured
ReasoningClaude Opus 590.4MarginNo overlapLing 2.6 FlashNot measured
MultimodalClaude Opus 566.9MarginNo overlapLing 2.6 FlashNot measured
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 5Not measuredMarginNo overlapLing 2.6 Flash57.0

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 5$5 input / $25 outputLing 2.6 FlashNot availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 5Not availableLing 2.6 Flash209.5 tok/sA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 5Not availableLing 2.6 Flash1.07 sA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 5Not availableLing 2.6 Flash262KA complete context comparison is not available.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
FrontierBench v0.1Source 43.3%Not comparable
BrowseCompSource 90.8%Not comparable
HLE w/ toolsSource 64.7%Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 95.0%Not comparable
DRACOSource 88.6%Not comparable
BrowseComp (10-agent, prerelease)Source 93.6%Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 70.6%Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 85.8%Not comparable
MCP-Atlas claim coverageSource 89.1%Not comparable
LAB all-pass (Anthropic harness)Source 23.58%Not comparable
LAB criterion-pass (Anthropic harness)Source 93.74%Not comparable
LAB all-pass (Harvey held-out)Source 11.7%Not comparable
LAB criterion-pass (Harvey held-out)Source 94.1%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1861550Claude Opus 5 leads
Toolathlon-VerifiedSource 80.6%Not comparable
Toolathlon Verified Pass@3Source 87.0%Not comparable
Toolathlon Verified Pass³Source 73.1%Not comparable
Toolathlon Verified avg. turnsSource 23.5 turnsNot comparable
AutomationBenchSource 26.0%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 55.3%2.3%Claude Opus 5 leads
GDPval-AASource 68.0%2.5%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA Tau3 BankingSource 30.3%Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1720Not comparable
aaTerminalBench21Source 89.1%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 86%Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 96%Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 79.2%Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 89.5%Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 59.4%Not comparable
deepSweSource 68.8%Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 53.4%Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 ExtendedSource 63.6%Not comparable
ProgramBench (episode 1)Source 83.0%Not comparable
ProgramBenchSource 93.0%Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 70.0%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 78.0%25.3%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 55.7%27.1%Claude Opus 5 leads
SciCodeSource 27%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
ARC-AGI-1Source 97.50%Not comparable
ARC-AGI-2Source 90.4%Not comparable
ARC-AGI-3Source 30.2%Not comparable
AA-LCRSource 70.0%25.0%Claude Opus 5 leads
CritPtSource 29.1%0.0%Claude Opus 5 leads
KnowledgeClaude Opus 5 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
HLESource 64.7%Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 56.3%Not comparable
HealthBench (raw)Source 67.1%Not comparable
HealthBench (length-adjusted)Source 57.8%Not comparable
HealthBench ProfessionalSource 59.8%Not comparable
HealthBench Professional (raw)Source 73.4%Not comparable
BioMysteryBench (human-solvable)Source 90.1%Not comparable
BioMysteryBench (human-difficult)Source 49.4%Not comparable
SpatialBench VerifiedSource 72.5%Not comparable
SingleCellBenchSource 60.6%Not comparable
ProteinGym HardSource 47.7%Not comparable
Protein DesignSource 42.5%Not comparable
Organic chemistry V2Source 61.6%Not comparable
Protocols (troubleshooting)Source 61.1%Not comparable
Protocols (understanding)Source 78.4%Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 60.7%14.1%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 93.2%59.3%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-HLESource 52.6%6.2%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 31.3%-65.7%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 54.2%15.4%Claude Opus 5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 50.1%95.8%Claude Opus 5 leads
GPQASource 59%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
IMO 2026Source 42/42Not comparable
RiemannBench (no tools)Source 60.0%Not comparable
RiemannBench (tools)Source 79.0%Not comparable
ArXivMath Jun. 2026 (no tools)Source 90.8%Not comparable
ArXivMath Jun. 2026 (tools)Source 91.3%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
GMMLUSource 92.5%Not comparable
MILUSource 92.1%Not comparable
INCLUDESource 89.8%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
Chartography (no tools)Source 29.6%Not comparable
Chartography (tools)Source 83.0%Not comparable
BenchCAD Vision2Code (no tools)Source 0.366Not comparable
BenchCAD Vision2Code (tools)Source 0.821Not comparable
GDP.pdf (no tools)Source 83.4%Not comparable
GDP.pdf (tools)Source 85.5%Not comparable
OfficeQASource 78.1%Not comparable
OfficeQA ProSource 66.9%Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 84.7%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5Ling 2.6 FlashResult
IFBenchSource 57%Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource 57.4%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (3)

Which is better, Claude Opus 5 or Ling 2.6 Flash?

Claude Opus 5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 85.88 to 42.99.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 5 or Ling 2.6 Flash?

Claude Opus 5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.7 versus 59. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 5 or Ling 2.6 Flash?

Claude Opus 5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 89.5 versus 27. Inside this category, AA Coding Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: July 24, 2026