Claude 4.8 Opus vs Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Compare Claude 4.8 Opus and Claude 4.6 Sonnet across pricing, context window, capabilities, benchmarks, and API access to choose the better fit for reasoning-heavy tasks versus long-context workloads.
Overview Comparison
Structured side-by-side differences for the highest-signal model metadata.
Provider
The entity that currently provides this model.
Model ID
The routed model identifier exposed by upstream providers.
Input Context Window
The number of tokens supported by the input context window.
Maximum Output Tokens
The number of tokens that can be generated by the model in a single request.
Open Source
Whether the model's code is available for public use.
Release Date
When the model was first released.
Knowledge Cut-off Date
When the model's knowledge was last updated.
API Providers
The providers that currently expose the model through an API.
Modalities
Types of data each model can process or return.
Pricing Comparison
Compare current token pricing before you choose the cheaper or more scalable API option.
Capabilities Comparison
See where each model overlaps, where they differ, and which one supports more of the features you care about.
Benchmark Comparison
Shared benchmark rows make it easier to compare performance where both models have published scores.
| Benchmark | Claude 4.8 Opus | Claude 4.6 Sonnet |
|---|---|---|
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ARC-AGI-2
Novel abstract reasoning and pattern recognition
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Finance Agent
Financial analysis and decision-making tasks
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GPQA Diamond
PhD-level science questions (biology, physics, chemistry)
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HLE
Questions that challenge frontier models across many domains
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IFBench
Instruction following accuracy
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Long Context Reasoning
Reasoning across long documents and contexts
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MATH-500
Undergraduate and competition-level math problems
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MCP-Atlas Tool Use
Structured tool use via Model Context Protocol
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MMLU-Pro
Expert knowledge across 14 academic disciplines
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MMMB
Multilingual and multimodal understanding
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OSWorld-Verified
Autonomous computer use and desktop tasks
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SciCode
Scientific research coding and numerical methods
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SWE-bench Verified
Real GitHub issues requiring multi-file code fixes
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Terminal-Bench 2.0
Agentic coding and terminal command tasks
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TerminalBench Hard
Agentic coding and terminal command tasks
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τ²-Bench
Agentic tool use in realistic scenarios
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τ²-bench Retail
Agentic tool use in retail scenarios
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τ²-bench Telecom
Agentic tool use in telecom scenarios
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What Reddit discussions say about Claude 4.8 Opus vs Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Claude 4.8 Opus and Claude 4.6 Sonnet are both surfacing live Reddit discussions, giving this comparison a community layer beyond specs and benchmarks.
The most visible threads right now are clustered in r/DeepSeek, r/SillyTavernAI. The feed below mixes discussion threads surfaced for each model so you can quickly spot where community sentiment overlaps or diverges.
Honestly, it isn't a terrible model.
I would put it on par with maybe Claude 4.6 sonnet.
For creativity, as I usually need that for writing. Its pretty excellent. Just not the feeling of a model like opus would.
I don't really use any other model except Kimi K2.6, as that's the best one so far.
For coding, it's pretty good too, though I've only done some html stuff with it.
And the fact it's in preview, just only means there's a hole lot more this model can do! Once it gets better at roleplay (still a bit generic, better than deepseek V3.2 in some way imo). It would be my daily driver most definitely.
[https://openrouter.ai/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6](https://openrouter.ai/anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6)
Same price as Sonnet 4.5
AI tools related to Claude 4.8 Opus vs Claude 4.6 Sonnet
These tools are closely connected to one or both models in this comparison and can help you evaluate real-world fit.
LongShot AI
LongShot AI is an AI-powered content creation platform built to help users plan, generate, and optimize articles for search engines like Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. It provides features such as real-time content generation, fact-checking, semantic SEO, and custom AI tools to produce high-quality, SEO-optimized content. LongShot AI balances creativity with optimization to help users create content that engages audiences and improves search rankings.
Claudeai.ai
Claudeai.ai is a platform powered by Anthropic's Claude 2 language model. It provides global access to Claude 2's features, including support for processing various text files, a 100K token context limit, and the ability to interact with up to 5 files at once. While not affiliated with Anthropic, Claudeai.ai uses the Claude 2 API to offer a user experience similar to the official website, accessible without regional restrictions.
Sudowrite
Sudowrite is an AI writing assistant tailored for fiction authors, novelists, and screenwriters. It helps users overcome writer's block, brainstorm concepts, generate prose, expand scenes, refine sentences, and receive feedback on drafts. By utilizing various large language models, it supports the entire writing process—from initial outlining to final editing—to make writing more efficient, enjoyable, and collaborative.
Engine
Engine is a suite of LLM-powered no-code tools that enables the creation of hosted API endpoints, HTML pages, and images using natural language. Additionally, it functions as an AI software engineer for teams, integrating with platforms like Jira, Trello, and Linear to convert tickets into pull requests, helping to automate development tasks and clear backlogs.
Which model should you choose?
Use the summary below to decide which model better fits your workflow, budget, and feature requirements.
Claude 4.8 Opus
Claude 4.8 Opus is a stronger fit for reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows, multimodal applications.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Claude 4.6 Sonnet is a stronger fit for long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.
Choose Claude 4.8 Opus if you prioritize reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows, multimodal applications. Choose Claude 4.6 Sonnet if your workflow depends more on long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.
Common questions about Claude 4.8 Opus vs Claude 4.6 Sonnet
What is the main difference between Claude 4.8 Opus and Claude 4.6 Sonnet?
Claude 4.8 Opus leans toward reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows, multimodal applications, while Claude 4.6 Sonnet is better suited to long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.
Which model is cheaper: Claude 4.8 Opus or Claude 4.6 Sonnet?
Claude 4.6 Sonnet starts lower on input pricing at $3.0000 per 1M input tokens, compared with $5.0000 for Claude 4.8 Opus.
Which model has the larger context window: Claude 4.8 Opus or Claude 4.6 Sonnet?
Claude 4.8 Opus is listed with a context window of $25.00 /MTok, while Claude 4.6 Sonnet is listed with 1M.
How should I evaluate Claude 4.8 Opus vs Claude 4.6 Sonnet for my use case?
This comparison currently includes 18 shared benchmark rows, helping you compare practical performance across overlapping evaluations.