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Quick Answer

Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: Which Is Better 2026

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The Short Answer

Claude Opus 5 ($5/$25) is the novel-reasoning and coding specialist — it leads most agentic/coding benchmarks and posts 96.0% SWE-bench Verified. GPT-5.6 Sol ($5/$30) is the terminal-and-browsing generalist. Same input price; Opus 5 is ~17% cheaper on output. Pick Opus 5 for hard problems and coding, Sol for browsing-heavy workflows.

Pricing (verified Aug 6, 2026)

ModelInput /MTokOutput /MTokContext
Claude Opus 5$5$251M (128K out)
GPT-5.6 Sol$5$30—
GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra$12.50$75—

Same input cost; Opus 5 is ~17% cheaper on output. A 30K-in/5K-out task: Opus 5 ≈ $0.28, Sol ≈ $0.30.

Benchmarks: Where Each Wins

Claude Opus 5 leads (per llm-stats head-to-head):

  • ARC-AGI-3 (novel reasoning)
  • AutomationBench, BrowseComp (agentic/computer use)
  • FrontierCode 1.1, OSWorld 2.0
  • 96.0% SWE-bench Verified (coding)

GPT-5.6 Sol leads:

  • DeepSWE 1.1
  • HealthBench Professional
  • Agents’ Last Exam — 53.6, a high across 55 professional fields

Caution: only SWE-bench Verified is reported by multiple vendors; treat single-vendor headline numbers as provisional.

Use-Case Split

  • Genuinely novel problems, hard reasoning: Opus 5. Its ARC-AGI-3 and FrontierCode lead is the differentiator.
  • Coding & computer use: Opus 5. Higher SWE-bench, wins OSWorld/BrowseComp, cheaper output.
  • Terminal + browsing generalist agents: Sol. Its DeepSWE and Agents’ Last Exam strength shows in long-running professional workflows.
  • Health/professional Q&A: Sol (HealthBench Professional).

Which Should You Pick?

  • Default for coding and novel reasoning: Claude Opus 5 — better benchmarks and 17% cheaper output.
  • Browsing-heavy, long-horizon professional agents: GPT-5.6 Sol.
  • Budget everyday chat (not these): GPT-5.6 Luna ($0.20/$1.20) undercuts both, trading depth.

Watch Outs

  • Benchmark non-equivalence — vendors publish different suites; don’t stack non-matching numbers.
  • Sol Ultra premium — at $12.50/$75 it’s a different cost class; the base Sol is the fair comparison to Opus 5.
  • Prices move — re-verify vendor pages before budgeting.

Verdict

For coding, novel reasoning, and computer use, Claude Opus 5 wins on both benchmarks and output price. For terminal + browsing generalist agent workflows, GPT-5.6 Sol edges ahead. Same input cost makes the choice about capability profile, not budget — and for most developers in 2026, that points to Opus 5.

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