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Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Updated November 13, 2026. Rank says GPT-5.6 Sol is ahead. Price, access, and your workload can each overturn that. Public scores include evidence status and uncertainty.

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Decision reading

GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public score estimate, 72.5 versus 63.83, but the 90% score intervals overlap. Treat that as a lead, not a settled winner. 21 results are shared. Category rows resting on Estimated evidence or different benchmark sets are marked directional and do not name a winner.

Model A
Anthropic logo

Anthropic

63.83/100

Supported · Public rank #34

90% interval 58.3–69.4

Model B
OpenAI logo

OpenAI

72.5/100

Supported · Public rank #14

90% interval 69.2–75.8

API price per 1M tokens

Claude Sonnet 5: $2 input / $10 output

GPT-5.6 Sol: $4 input / $20 output

Context window

Claude Sonnet 5: 1M

GPT-5.6 Sol: 1.05M

Released

Claude Sonnet 5: June 30, 2026

GPT-5.6 Sol: July 9, 2026

Shared results
21
Claude Sonnet 5 only
11
GPT-5.6 Sol only
28
Like-for-like categories
4 / 8
Supported: Claude Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6 SolHow the comparison works

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.

  • Coding work

    Code generation, repair, and software-engineering tasks

    GPT-5.6 Sol

    GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public coding point estimate, 62.5 to 51.7, with Supported evidence for both models. The conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.

    Confidence: limited
  • Agentic work

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

    GPT-5.6 Sol

    GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public agentic point estimate, 66.4 to 62.5, with Supported evidence for both models. The conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.

    Confidence: limited
  • Long documents

    Prompts that approach the documented context limit

    GPT-5.6 Sol

    GPT-5.6 Sol has the larger documented context window.

    Confidence: documented
Show secondary and unsupported calls
  • Chat turn cost

    1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower estimated token cost for this stated workload. Costs use the listed standard API rates.

    Confidence: listed-rates
  • Cache-heavy agent loop cost

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

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower estimated token cost for this stated workload. Costs use the listed standard API rates.

    Confidence: listed-rates
  • Repository review cost

    50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

    Claude Sonnet 5

    Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower estimated token cost for this stated workload. Costs use the listed standard API rates.

    Confidence: listed-rates

Which one for a specific job

Choose a job from the LLM Selector's task catalog to see the category row it rests on, under the same basis rules as the table below. A directional row stays directional; choosing a job never creates a winner.

The same task catalog as the LLM Selector. Each job names the evidence surface it rests on; nothing here adds a new score.

51.7Claude Sonnet 562.5GPT-5.6 Sol

Like-for-like · BenchAlign v5.8

GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher coding point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

Coding scores combine specific tasks and setups. Match the editor, harness, and effort to your workflow.

Same basis rules as the category table below

Or describe your own job

The LLM Selector reads what you need a model for and returns a shortlist, ranked in the same order the job pages publish.

Describe the task and constraints. This selector recommends models; it cannot carry out the task or access your files and accounts.

We keep what you type here, drafts included, for 180 days, and after that only the job and requirements read from it. Nothing is tied to your IP address or account. Leave out names and other personal details. Privacy

What is actually comparable

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

1 category rests on Estimated evidence or different evidence sets. Those rows remain visible for coverage context but do not name a winner.

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.

Too few matched category axes support a radar. The ruled list below shows only shared benchmark results; positions use each benchmark’s normalized display scale when available.

Bars run 0–100 on each benchmark’s normalized display scale

Category results, on a stated basis

Each row shows the public-lane category score for both models: the BenchAlign v5.8 lane for agentic, coding, reasoning, multimodal, and knowledge, and the weighted public rows elsewhere, with the same rank each model page reports. A row is like-for-like only when both scores rest on Supported evidence or the same weighted set. Directional and not-comparable rows remain visible, but they never receive a winner.

Agentic

Like-for-like
Claude Sonnet 5
62.5
Supported · #22/135
GPT-5.6 Sol
66.4
Supported · #15/135
Basis
BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 10 vs 12 public rows
Reading
GPT-5.6 Sol leads · intervals overlap

Coding

Like-for-like
Claude Sonnet 5
51.7
Supported · #40/162
GPT-5.6 Sol
62.5
Supported · #16/162
Basis
BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 11 vs 16 public rows
Reading
GPT-5.6 Sol leads · intervals overlap

Multimodal

Like-for-like
Claude Sonnet 5
60.4
Supported · #34/67
GPT-5.6 Sol
74.8
Supported · #9/67
Basis
BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 3 vs 4 public rows
Reading
GPT-5.6 Sol leads · intervals overlap

Knowledge

Like-for-like
Claude Sonnet 5
61.8
Supported · #43/180
GPT-5.6 Sol
75.2
Supported · #12/180
Basis
BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 6 vs 8 public rows
Reading
GPT-5.6 Sol leads · intervals overlap

Reasoning

Directional only
Claude Sonnet 5
59.8
Estimated · #32/160
GPT-5.6 Sol
73.1
Supported · #13/160
Basis
BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 0 vs 5 public rows
Reading
Directional only

Multilingual

Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5
Not ranked
GPT-5.6 Sol
Not ranked
Basis
Provisional lane · 0 vs 0 weighted rows
Reading
Not comparable

Instruction following

Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5
Not ranked
GPT-5.6 Sol
89.1
#34/157
Basis
Provisional lane · 0 vs 0 weighted rows
Reading
Not comparable

Math

Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5
64.9
Unranked · 2 rankable rows
GPT-5.6 Sol
90.3
Unranked · 3 rankable rows
Basis
Provisional lane · 2 vs 2 weighted rows
Reading
Not comparable

Ranks count the models scored in each category’s lane, so the agentic, coding, reasoning, multimodal, and knowledge denominators (BenchAlign v5.8) differ from the provisional-lane categories. Unranked scores sit on the provisional lane’s scale but never name a winner. Like-for-like rows within 0.5 points read as a practical tie.

Supported evidence per lane · bars run 0–100Methodology

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 Sonnet 5
$0.007
Fits in one request
GPT-5.6 Sol
$0.014
Fits in one request

Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower modeled cost

Costs use the listed standard API rates.

Repository review

50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5
$0.13
Fits in one request
GPT-5.6 Sol
$0.26
Fits in one request

Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower modeled cost

Costs use the listed standard API rates.

Cache-heavy agent loop

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

Claude Sonnet 5
$0.18
Fits in one request
GPT-5.6 Sol
$0.36
Fits in one request

Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower modeled cost

Costs use the listed standard API rates.

Your workload

Enter a month of tokens to price it at both models’ listed API rates.

Claude Sonnet 5
$40.00
per month
GPT-5.6 Sol
$80.00
per month

Standard listed rates, no batch or volume discounts.

Cached input falls back to the list input rate only where a cached rate is unpublished

Specification differences

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

Cached-input rate

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

Claude Sonnet 5

$0.2 per 1M cached input tokens

Claude API pricing

GPT-5.6 Sol

$0.4 per 1M cached input tokens

OpenAI pricing

Reasoning profile

Claude Sonnet 5

Reasoning

GPT-5.6 Sol

Reasoning

Weight access

Claude Sonnet 5

Proprietary

GPT-5.6 Sol

Proprietary

License

Claude Sonnet 5

Proprietary

GPT-5.6 Sol

Proprietary

Release date

Claude Sonnet 5

2026-06-30

GPT-5.6 Sol

2026-07-09

If you already use one of these models

Deployment change
The models list different providers, so authentication, endpoint behavior, limits, and feature support may change.
Quality signal
GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public score estimate, 72.5 versus 63.83, but the 90% score intervals overlap.
Workload cost
Repository review: $0.13 vs $0.26. Cache-heavy agent loop: $0.18 vs $0.36.
Context tradeoff
GPT-5.6 Sol has the larger documented window (1.05M).
Run the same representative tasks against both endpoints before changing production traffic.

Questions

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public score estimate, 72.5 versus 63.83, 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 Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public coding point estimate, 62.5 to 51.7, with Supported evidence for both models. The conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the higher public agentic tasks point estimate, 66.4 to 62.5, with Supported evidence for both models. The conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.

Which costs less, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

For the stated presets, chat costs $0.007 on Claude Sonnet 5 and $0.014 on GPT-5.6 Sol; repository review costs $0.13 and $0.26; the cache-heavy agent loop costs $0.18 and $0.36. Costs use the listed standard API rates.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the larger documented context window: 1.05M, compared with 1M.

Benchmark evidence

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

Browse raw public benchmark evidence60 rows

Agentic

  • Terminal-Bench 4.1

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 512.10%
    GPT-5.6 Sol38.50%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • Terminal-Bench 3.0

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 514.6%
    GPT-5.6 Sol34.6%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • Terminal-Bench 2.1

    Claude Sonnet 580.4%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol91.9%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • BrowseComp

    Claude Sonnet 584.7%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol92.2%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • HLE w/ tools

    Claude Sonnet 557.4%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld-Verified

    Claude Sonnet 581.2%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)

    Claude Sonnet 574.5%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol85.8%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • ApprenticeBench

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 516%
    GPT-5.6 Sol26%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • MazeBench

    Claude Sonnet 50%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol13%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • OSWorld 2.1

    Claude Sonnet 557.0%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • LifeVal

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol80.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • OSWorld 2.0

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol62.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • CyberGym

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol84.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ExploitGym

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol33.7%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • Toolathlon

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol58%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Coding

  • SWE-bench Verified

    Claude Sonnet 585.2%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • SWE-bench Pro

    Claude Sonnet 563.2%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol64.6%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • SWE Multilingual

    Claude Sonnet 578.3%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • SWE Multimodal

    Claude Sonnet 528.1%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • Terminal-Bench 2.1

    Claude Sonnet 580.4%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol91.9%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • FrontierCode 1.1 Main

    Claude Sonnet 542.7%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • CursorBench 3.2

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 561.5%
    GPT-5.6 Sol67.2%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • VulcanBench CII v1

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 589.2%
    GPT-5.6 Sol86.5%

    Claude Sonnet 5 leads this result

  • LiveCodeBench (Vals)

    Claude Sonnet 582.4%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol82.6%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • SWE-bench (Vals)

    Claude Sonnet 579.6%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol96.2%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • CursorBench 4.0

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 534.1%
    GPT-5.6 Sol41.7%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • Bug Hunt Bench

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol42.0 fixes
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • DeepSWE

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol72.7%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierCode 1.1 Extended

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol60.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierSWE v2

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol32.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • VulcanBench v3

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol87.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • PostTrainBench v1.1

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol36.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • FrontierCode 2.0

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol27.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • VulcanBench Frontier v4

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol87.2%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • PostTrainBench

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol31.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Reasoning

  • BioBasicsBench

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol45.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ARC-AGI-2

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol92.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ARC-AGI-3

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol7.8%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • GeneBench-Pro

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol28.7%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • ARC-AGI-1

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol96.50%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Multimodal

  • ParseBench

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 561.16%
    GPT-5.6 Sol74.40%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • CharXiv

    Claude Sonnet 588.3%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • CharXiv w/o tools

    Claude Sonnet 577%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • ExtractBench (LlamaIndex)

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol93.77%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MMMU-Pro

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol83%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • MMMU-Pro w/ Python

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol84.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Knowledge

  • HLE

    Claude Sonnet 557.4%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE w/o tools

    Claude Sonnet 543.2%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol—

    Not directly comparable

  • HLE-Verified

    Shared source
    Claude Sonnet 531.0%
    GPT-5.6 Sol54.5%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • Claude Sonnet 580.1%
    GPT-5.6 Sol82.1%

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • GPQA Diamond (Vals)

    Claude Sonnet 588.9%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol95.2%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • MMLU-Pro (Vals)

    Claude Sonnet 587.5%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol89.1%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • GPQA

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol94.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • GPQA-D

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol94.6%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HealthBench Professional

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol60.5%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

  • HealthBench Hard

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol33.1%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Instruction following

  • Gray Swan IPI (15 attempts)

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol27.0%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

Math

  • FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Claude Sonnet 565.614%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol89.000%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Claude Sonnet 529.268%
    Source
    GPT-5.6 Sol83.000%
    Source

    GPT-5.6 Sol leads this result

  • FrontierMath (legacy)

    Claude Sonnet 5—
    GPT-5.6 Sol89%
    Source

    Not directly comparable

60 public results · 21 shared

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Last updated November 13, 2026