Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 1, 2026

Claude 3 Opus vs Yi-Lightning benchmark

Name: Claude 3 Opus vs Yi-Lightning AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude 3 Opus (Anthropic) and Yi-Lightning (01.AI) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 1, 2026. On preference Elo, Yi-Lightning is ahead by 227 points (1,475 vs 1,248; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Yi-Lightning resolves 63.4% versus 38.4% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Yi-Lightning streams faster (130 tok/s) while Yi-Lightning is the cheaper output token ($0.14/1M). Claude 3 Opus has the larger context window (200k tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude 3 Opus

Original Claude 3 flagship. Kept so opus 3 vs later Opus and vs GPT-4o still resolve.

Elo 1,248$75/1M out

01.AI

Yi-Lightning

01.AI ultra-fast reasoning model delivering top LiveBench efficiency.

Elo 1,475$0.14/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude 3 Opus (1)vsYi-Lightning (9)

Claude 3 Opus: 1W (10%)Overall: Yi-LightningYi-Lightning: 9W (90%)

← Claude 3 OpusYi-Lightning →

Yi-Lightning (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,248vs1,475

Coding Elo

—vs1,480

SWE-bench

38.4%vs63.4%

LiveBench

46.2%vs65%

GPQA Diamond

50.4%vs78%

Claude 3 Opus: 0WYi-Lightning: 5W

Yi-Lightning (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

48 tok/svs130 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs150 ms

Claude 3 Opus: 0WYi-Lightning: 2W

Yi-Lightning (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Context window

200kvs16k

Claude 3 Opus: 1WYi-Lightning: 2W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageYi-Lightning 5/6

Preference Elo

Yi-Lightning

227 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Yi-Lightning

82 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Yi-Lightning

$74.86/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,248

EloHigh is better

1,475+18%

Code Elo

High is better

—

Code EloHigh is better

1,480

LiveBench

High is better

46.2%

LiveBenchHigh is better

65%+41%

SWE-bench

High is better

38.4%

SWE-benchHigh is better

63.4%+65%

GPQA

High is better

50.4%

GPQAHigh is better

78%+55%

TTFT

Low is better

420 ms

TTFTLow is better

150 ms+180%

Speed

High is better

48 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

130 tok/s+171%

In $

Low is better

$15/1M

In $Low is better

$0.14/1M+10614%

Out $

Low is better

$75/1M

Out $Low is better

$0.14/1M+53471%

Context

High is better

+1121%200k

ContextHigh is better

16k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 100% with Yi-Lightning

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude 3 Opus$1,650.00 / mo

In: $525.00Out: $1125.00

Yi-Lightning$7.00 / mo

In: $4.90Out: $2.10

Estimated Cost Delta

Yi-Lightning is estimated to save $1,643.00/month ($19,716/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Yi-Lightning:Pick Yi-Lightning when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Yi-Lightning:Pick Yi-Lightning when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
3
Yi-Lightning:Pick Yi-Lightning as the default general assistant.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsYi-Lightning

Higher SWE-bench (63.4%).

High-volume chatYi-Lightning

Lower output list price ($0.14/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIYi-Lightning

Lower TTFT (150 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude 3 Opus

Larger window (200k).

Screenshots / visionClaude 3 Opus

Claude 3 Opus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Yi-Lightning	Higher SWE-bench (63.4%).
High-volume chat	Yi-Lightning	Lower output list price ($0.14/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Yi-Lightning	Lower TTFT (150 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude 3 Opus	Larger window (200k).
Screenshots / vision	Claude 3 Opus	Claude 3 Opus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Community Sentiment

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude 3 Opus

Elo 1,248

LiveBench46.2%

SWE-bench38.4%

Speed48 tok/s

Output cost$75/1M

01.AI

Yi-Lightning

Elo 1,475

LiveBench65%

SWE-bench63.4%

Speed130 tok/s

Output cost$0.14/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?: Yi-Lightning has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,475). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?: Yi-Lightning leads SWE-bench at 63.4% vs 38.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Yi-Lightning output tokens are $0.14/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?: Yi-Lightning has the lower time-to-first-token (150 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude 3 Opus accepts 200k tokens versus 16k.
Can I self-host either model?: Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude 3 Opus and Yi-Lightning Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude 3 Opus matchups →|All Yi-Lightning matchups →

Claude 3 Opus vs Claude Opus 4 (next opus)Yi-Lightning vs Yi-Large (previous other)Yi-Lightning vs Ernie 4.5 Turbo (next other)Claude Opus 4.5 vs Yi-Lightning Claude Opus 4.6 vs Yi-Lightning Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Yi-Lightning

Claude 3 Opus vs Yi-Lightning benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude 3 Opus (1)vsYi-Lightning (9)

Claude 3 Opus: 1W (10%)Overall: Yi-LightningYi-Lightning: 9W (90%)

← Claude 3 OpusYi-Lightning →

Yi-Lightning (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,248vs1,475

Coding Elo

—vs1,480

SWE-bench

38.4%vs63.4%

LiveBench

46.2%vs65%

GPQA Diamond

50.4%vs78%

Claude 3 Opus: 0WYi-Lightning: 5W

Yi-Lightning (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

48 tok/svs130 tok/s

Time to first token

420 msvs150 ms

Claude 3 Opus: 0WYi-Lightning: 2W

Yi-Lightning (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Context window

200kvs16k

Claude 3 Opus: 1WYi-Lightning: 2W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsYi-Lightning

Higher SWE-bench (63.4%).

High-volume chatYi-Lightning

Lower output list price ($0.14/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIYi-Lightning

Lower TTFT (150 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude 3 Opus

Larger window (200k).

Screenshots / visionClaude 3 Opus

Claude 3 Opus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Yi-Lightning	Higher SWE-bench (63.4%).
High-volume chat	Yi-Lightning	Lower output list price ($0.14/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Yi-Lightning	Lower TTFT (150 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude 3 Opus	Larger window (200k).
Screenshots / vision	Claude 3 Opus	Claude 3 Opus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?

Yi-Lightning has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,475). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?

Yi-Lightning leads SWE-bench at 63.4% vs 38.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Yi-Lightning output tokens are $0.14/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude 3 Opus or Yi-Lightning?

Yi-Lightning has the lower time-to-first-token (150 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude 3 Opus accepts 200k tokens versus 16k.

Can I self-host either model?

Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude 3 Opus and Yi-Lightning Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.