Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 benchmark

Name: Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic) and Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Opus 5 is ahead by 68 points (1,624 vs 1,556; seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Opus 5 resolves 79.2% versus 73.8% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). Claude Sonnet 5 streams faster (118 tok/s) while Claude Sonnet 5 is the cheaper output token ($10/1M). Claude Opus 5 has the larger context window (1M 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 Opus 5

Anthropic current default flagship. Official API $5/$25 per 1M tokens and a 1M context window (Anthropic, Jul 24 2026).

Elo 1,624$50/1M out

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Anthropic workhorse. Official $2/$10 per 1M tokens made permanent on Aug 10 2026.

Elo 1,556$10/1M 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 Opus 5 (5)vsClaude Sonnet 5 (4)

Claude Opus 5: 5W (56%)Overall: Claude Opus 5Claude Sonnet 5: 4W (44%)

← Claude Opus 51 tiesClaude Sonnet 5 →

Claude Opus 5 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,624vs1,556

Coding Elo

1,618vs1,562

SWE-bench

79.2%vs73.8%

LiveBench

74.8%vs70.4%

GPQA Diamond

87.1%vs82.8%

Claude Opus 5: 5WClaude Sonnet 5: 0W

Claude Sonnet 5 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

72 tok/svs118 tok/s

Time to first token

310 msvs175 ms

Claude Opus 5: 0WClaude Sonnet 5: 2W

Claude Sonnet 5 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$50/1Mvs$10/1M

Input price

$10/1Mvs$2/1M

Context window

1Mvs1M

Claude Opus 5: 0WClaude Sonnet 5: 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 AdvantageClaude Opus 5 3/6

Preference Elo

Claude Opus 5

68 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Sonnet 5

46 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Claude Sonnet 5

$40.00/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+4%1,624

EloHigh is better

1,556

Code Elo

High is better

+4%1,618

Code EloHigh is better

1,562

LiveBench

High is better

+6%74.8%

LiveBenchHigh is better

70.4%

SWE-bench

High is better

+7%79.2%

SWE-benchHigh is better

73.8%

GPQA

High is better

+5%87.1%

GPQAHigh is better

82.8%

TTFT

Low is better

310 ms

TTFTLow is better

175 ms+77%

Speed

High is better

72 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

118 tok/s+64%

In $

Low is better

$10/1M

In $Low is better

$2/1M+400%

Out $

Low is better

$50/1M

Out $Low is better

$10/1M+400%

Context

High is better

ContextHigh is better

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 80% with Claude Sonnet 5

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

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

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

Claude Opus 5$1,100.00 / mo

In: $350.00Out: $750.00

Claude Sonnet 5$220.00 / mo

In: $70.00Out: $150.00

Estimated Cost Delta

Claude Sonnet 5 is estimated to save $880.00/month ($10,560/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Opus 5:Pick Claude Opus 5 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Claude Sonnet 5:Pick Claude Sonnet 5 when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Claude Sonnet 5:Pick Claude Sonnet 5 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 5

Higher SWE-bench (79.2%).

High-volume chatClaude Sonnet 5

Lower output list price ($10/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 5

Lower TTFT (175 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 5

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 5).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 5	Higher SWE-bench (79.2%).
High-volume chat	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower output list price ($10/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower TTFT (175 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 5	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 5).

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

compareAug 10, 2026

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Usually Sonnet 5 vs Opus 5. Coding delta versus output $/1M. The workhorse question.

priceAug 10, 2026

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Aug 10 2026 made the $2/$10 list permanent. Sonnet is the default Claude unless the repo is actually on fire.

compareJul 24, 2026

Claude vs Gemini: coding, Elo, and output price — not a brand mashup

Top Anthropic vs top Google. Usually Opus 5 vs 3.6 Pro. Two different invoices.

compareJul 24, 2026

Claude vs GPT benchmark: this hub always remaps to the current Elo leaders

Not a frozen 2025 article. Today that is usually Opus 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol. Dated cells, not a brand fight.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Opus 5

Elo 1,624

LiveBench74.8%

SWE-bench79.2%

Speed72 tok/s

Output cost$50/1M

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 5

Elo 1,556

LiveBench70.4%

SWE-bench73.8%

Speed118 tok/s

Output cost$10/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?: Claude Opus 5 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,624). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?: Claude Opus 5 leads SWE-bench at 79.2% vs 73.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Claude Sonnet 5 output tokens are $10/1M versus $50/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?: Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower time-to-first-token (175 ms vs 310 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Opus 5 accepts 1M tokens versus 1M.
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 Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Opus 5 matchups →|All Claude Sonnet 5 matchups →

Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Opus 4.8 (previous opus)Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 (previous sonnet)Claude Fable 5 vs Claude Opus 5 Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 5 Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 GPT-5.6 Sol vs Claude Opus 5

Claude Opus 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5 benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 5 (5)vsClaude Sonnet 5 (4)

Claude Opus 5: 5W (56%)Overall: Claude Opus 5Claude Sonnet 5: 4W (44%)

← Claude Opus 51 tiesClaude Sonnet 5 →

Claude Opus 5 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,624vs1,556

Coding Elo

1,618vs1,562

SWE-bench

79.2%vs73.8%

LiveBench

74.8%vs70.4%

GPQA Diamond

87.1%vs82.8%

Claude Opus 5: 5WClaude Sonnet 5: 0W

Claude Sonnet 5 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

72 tok/svs118 tok/s

Time to first token

310 msvs175 ms

Claude Opus 5: 0WClaude Sonnet 5: 2W

Claude Sonnet 5 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$50/1Mvs$10/1M

Input price

$10/1Mvs$2/1M

Context window

1Mvs1M

Claude Opus 5: 0WClaude Sonnet 5: 2W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Opus 5

Higher SWE-bench (79.2%).

High-volume chatClaude Sonnet 5

Lower output list price ($10/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 5

Lower TTFT (175 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Opus 5

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 5

Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 5).

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Opus 5	Higher SWE-bench (79.2%).
High-volume chat	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower output list price ($10/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 5	Lower TTFT (175 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Opus 5	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 5	Both accept images. Defaulting to the higher-Elo side (Claude Opus 5).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Opus 5 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,624). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Opus 5 leads SWE-bench at 79.2% vs 73.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Claude Sonnet 5 output tokens are $10/1M versus $50/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Opus 5 or Claude Sonnet 5?

Claude Sonnet 5 has the lower time-to-first-token (175 ms vs 310 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Opus 5 accepts 1M tokens versus 1M.

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 Opus 5 and Claude Sonnet 5 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Claude vs Gemini: coding, Elo, and output price — not a brand mashup

Claude vs GPT benchmark: this hub always remaps to the current Elo leaders

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Claude Opus 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Sonnet vs Opus in 2026: same family, different invoice

Claude Sonnet 5 at $2/$10: the 2026 Anthropic workhorse

Claude vs Gemini: coding, Elo, and output price — not a brand mashup

Claude vs GPT benchmark: this hub always remaps to the current Elo leaders

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

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CompareLLM Matrix

Claude Opus 5

Claude Sonnet 5

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons