# Humanity's Last Exam without tools (HLE w/o tools) > Tool-free variant of Humanity's Last Exam that isolates a model's raw frontier reasoning. Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/benchmarks/hlenotools - Category: [Knowledge](/knowledge) - Last updated: September 18, 2026 ## About HLE w/o tools - Year: 2026 - Tasks: Expert-level questions - Format: Tool-free expert QA - Difficulty: Frontier expert level - Paper: [Introducing GPT-5.4 mini and nano](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-4-mini-and-nano/) This variant removes external tools so the score reflects pure model performance on frontier expert questions. HLE w/o tools is currently weighted in BenchLM's scoring formula. The Knowledge category carries 12% of the overall score, and HLE w/o tools contributes 10% of that category score. ## Leaderboard (38 models) | Rank | Model | Creator | Score | |------|-------|---------|-------| | 1 | [Claude Fable 5.1](/models/claude-fable-5-1) | Anthropic | 60.9% | | 2 | [Claude Mythos 5](/models/claude-mythos-5) | Anthropic | 59% | | 3 | [Claude Opus 5](/models/claude-opus-5) | Anthropic | 56.3% | | 4 | [Muse Spark 1.1](/models/muse-spark-1-1) | Meta | 52.2% | | 5 | [Sakana Fugu-Ultra](/models/sakana-fugu-ultra) | Sakana AI | 50% | | 6 | [Claude Opus 4.8](/models/claude-opus-4-8) | Anthropic | 49.8% | | 7 | [Pareto 26.9](/models/pareto-26-9) | Unbiased | 49% | | 8 | [Sakana Fugu](/models/sakana-fugu) | Sakana AI | 47.2% | | 9 | [Claude Opus 4.7 (Adaptive)](/models/claude-opus-4-7-adaptive) | Anthropic | 46.9% | | 10 | [Gemini 3.1 Pro](/models/gemini-3-1-pro) | Google | 45.4% | | 11 | [Ornith-1.5-397B](/models/ornith-1-5-397b) | Ornith AI | 44.6% | | 12 | [Qwen3.8 Max](/models/qwen3-8-max) | Alibaba | 43.6% | | 13 | [Kimi K3](/models/kimi-k3) | Moonshot AI | 43.5% | | 14 | [Hy4 preview](/models/hy4-preview) | Tencent | 43.4% | | 15 | [Claude Sonnet 5](/models/claude-sonnet-5) | Anthropic | 43.2% | | 16 | [GPT-5.5 Pro](/models/gpt-5-5-pro) | OpenAI | 43.1% | | 17 | [Muse Spark](/models/muse-spark) | Meta | 42.8% | | 18 | [GPT-5.4 Pro](/models/gpt-5-4-pro) | OpenAI | 42.7% | | 19 | [GPT-5.5](/models/gpt-5-5) | OpenAI | 41.4% | | 20 | [GLM-5.2](/models/glm-5-2) | Z.AI | 40.5% | | 21 | [Claude Opus 4.6](/models/claude-opus-4-6) | Anthropic | 40% | | 22 | [GPT-5.4](/models/gpt-5-4) | OpenAI | 39.8% | | 23 | [Qwen3.8-Flash-Next](/models/qwen3-8-flash-next) | Alibaba | 35.9% | | 24 | [MiMo-V2.5-Pro](/models/mimo-v2-5-pro) | Xiaomi | 34% | | 25 | [Grok 4.20](/models/grok-4-20-beta) | xAI | 31.6% | | 26 | [Inkling-Small](/models/inkling-small) | Thinking Machines Lab | 31.6% | | 27 | [Qwen3.8-27B](/models/qwen3-8-27b) | Alibaba | 30.8% | | 28 | [Inkling](/models/inkling) | Thinking Machines Lab | 30% | | 29 | [Solar Open 2](/models/solar-open-2) | Upstage | 28.8% | | 30 | [GPT-5.4 mini](/models/gpt-5-4-mini) | OpenAI | 28.2% | | 31 | [Nemotron 3 Ultra](/models/nemotron-3-ultra) | NVIDIA | 26.7% | | 32 | [Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B](/models/ornith-1-5-35b-a3b) | Ornith AI | 25.6% | | 33 | [GPT-5.4 nano](/models/gpt-5-4-nano) | OpenAI | 24.3% | | 34 | [Ornith-1.5-9B](/models/ornith-1-5-9b) | Ornith AI | 20.2% | | 35 | [Gemma 4 31B](/models/gemma-4-31b) | Google | 19.5% | | 36 | [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4) | NVIDIA | 10.5% | | 37 | [Gemma 4 26B A4B](/models/gemma-4-26b-a4b) | Google | 8.7% | | 38 | [Gemma 4 12B](/models/gemma-4-12b) | Google | 5.2% | ## FAQ ### What does HLE w/o tools measure? Tool-free variant of Humanity's Last Exam that isolates a model's raw frontier reasoning. ### Which model scores highest on HLE w/o tools? Claude Fable 5.1 by Anthropic currently leads with a score of 60.9% on HLE w/o tools. ### How many models are evaluated on HLE w/o tools? 38 AI models have been evaluated on HLE w/o tools on BenchLM. ### Does HLE w/o tools affect BenchLM's overall score? Yes. HLE w/o tools is a weighted benchmark inside the Knowledge category, which carries 12% of BenchLM's overall score. HLE w/o tools itself contributes 10% of that category score. ## Compare Top Models on HLE w/o tools - [Claude Fable 5.1 vs Claude Mythos 5](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-claude-mythos-5) - [Claude Mythos 5 vs Claude Opus 5](/compare/claude-mythos-5-vs-claude-opus-5) - [Claude Opus 5 vs Muse Spark 1.1](/compare/claude-opus-5-vs-muse-spark-1-1) - [Muse Spark 1.1 vs Sakana Fugu-Ultra](/compare/muse-spark-1-1-vs-sakana-fugu-ultra)