Claude 2.1vsClaude Opus 4.8
Claude 2.1 | Claude Opus 4.8 | |
|---|---|---|
| Specifications | ||
Context windowHow much text the model can hold in mind at once — your question, any documents you attach, the conversation so far, and its own reply. Go past it and the earliest part falls out of view. | 200k | 1M |
| API pricingUSD per 1M tokens · lower wins | ||
Input priceWhat you pay for everything you send the model — your question, plus any documents or earlier conversation you include with it. | — | $5.00 |
Output priceWhat you pay for the text the model writes back. It is normally the dearer half: producing an answer costs more than reading one. | — | $25.00 |
Cached input priceA reduced rate for text you send over and over. If every request starts with the same instructions or the same document, the provider keeps a copy ready and charges less to read it again. | — | $0.50 |
| BenchmarksPublished by one model only | ||
BullshitBench v2Nonsense detection — Given a confidently-worded but nonsensical prompt, does the AI spot that it makes no sense and push back — instead of playing along and inventing an answer? The score is how often it clearly called out the nonsense. Higher is better. | — | 95% |
Gray Swan IPI · k = 1Prompt injection robustness — Attackers hide malicious instructions inside content the AI reads — a web page, an email, a document — and try to hijack what it does. Gray Swan's indirect prompt injection benchmark measures how often such an attack succeeds when the attacker gets a single try. Lower is better. | — | 0.5% |
Gray Swan IPI · k = 10Prompt injection robustness — Attackers hide malicious instructions inside content the AI reads — a web page, an email, a document — and try to hijack what it does. This variant gives the attacker 10 tries and counts an attack as successful if any of them works. Lower is better. | — | 4.1% |
Gray Swan IPI · k = 15Prompt injection robustness — Attackers hide malicious instructions inside content the AI reads — a web page, an email, a document — and try to hijack what it does. This variant gives the attacker 15 tries and counts an attack as successful if any of them works. Lower is better. | — | 5.5% |
SWE-Bench ProAgentic coding — Can the AI fix real bugs in real software? It's handed actual problems from open-source projects and has to write code that genuinely solves them. Higher is better. | — | 69.2% |
SWE-Bench MultilingualMultilingual coding — Like SWE-Bench, but the coding problems span many programming languages, not just one. Tests how broadly the AI can code. Higher is better. | — | 84.4% |
CursorBench v3.2Agentic coding — Cursor's own test of harder, real-world coding tasks inside a code editor, on the refreshed v3.2 task set. Scores aren't comparable with v3.1. Higher is better. | — | 62.3% |
CursorBench v3.1Agentic coding — Cursor's own test of harder, real-world coding tasks inside a code editor. Higher is better. | — | 63.8% |
DeepSWE 1.0Agentic coding — Artificial Analysis' independent test of deep, agentic software-engineering work — the AI has to plan and carry out substantial coding tasks end to end. Higher is better. | — | 55.8% |
Next.js EvalsNext.js coding — Vercel's open eval of how well AI coding agents build and migrate real Next.js apps — measured as the share of tasks the agent completes successfully. Higher is better. | — | 88% |
Frontier-Bench v0.1Agentic computer work — A hard, ever-evolving set of real computer tasks — coding, system administration, data work, and more — that an AI agent has to complete on its own. Run by the Harbor / Laude Institute team as the successor to Terminal-Bench (v0.1 is the first release of the task set). The score is the share of tasks solved. Higher is better. | — | 21.1% |
Terminal-Bench 2.1Agentic terminal coding — Can the AI work in a command-line terminal — running commands and finishing technical setup tasks the way a developer would? Higher is better. | — | 74.6% |
BU BenchBrowser agent — Can the AI drive a real web browser to finish tasks — clicking, filling forms, and navigating sites the way a person would? Run by Browser Use on their BU Bench task set. Higher is better. | — | 74% |
BrowseCompWeb browsing — Can the AI browse the web and track down hard-to-find answers? Higher is better. | — | 84.3% |
Humanity's Last Exam · no toolsMultidisciplinary reasoning — Humanity's Last Exam — extremely hard expert questions across many subjects, written so you can't just look up the answer. “No tools” means the AI answers on its own. Higher is better. | — | 49.8% |
Humanity's Last Exam · with toolsMultidisciplinary reasoning — Humanity's Last Exam — extremely hard expert questions across many subjects. “With tools” means the AI is allowed to search the web or run code while answering. Higher is better. | — | 57.9% |
OSWorld-VerifiedAgentic computer use — Can the AI actually operate a computer — clicking, typing, and using real apps — to finish tasks on its own? Higher is better. | — | 83.4% |
Finance Agent v2Agentic financial analysis — Tests the AI on real financial-analysis work, like digging through reports and making sound decisions. Higher is better. | — | 53.9% |
Harvey's Legal Agent BenchmarkAgentic legal work — Harvey's test of whether an AI agent can complete real legal work — drafting and reviewing documents, working with spreadsheets and presentations, and navigating files the way a lawyer's assistant would. Higher is better. | — | 9.58% |
TaxEval v2Tax questions — A set of real tax questions created by Vals AI — can the AI give accurate answers about tax rules and filings? Higher is better. | — | 75.63% |
MedScribeMedical admin work — Can the AI support doctors with their administrative work, like notes and paperwork? Created by Vals AI. Higher is better. | — | 85.75% |
GDPval-AAKnowledge work — Measures how well the AI does economically valuable knowledge work, judged against human experts. Shown as a rating (like a chess Elo) — higher is better. | — | 1890 |
GDPval-AA v2Knowledge work — economically valuable knowledge work (v2, re-based Elo) | — | 1600 |
Arena Elo (Text)Community preference — Real people chat with two anonymous AIs side by side and vote for the answer they prefer. Votes become a chess-style Elo rating on arena.ai — it measures which AI people actually like, not test scores. Higher is better. | — | 1482 |
Arena Elo (Code)Community preference (code) — Like the text arena, but people vote on which AI writes better code. The votes become a chess-style Elo rating on arena.ai. Higher is better. | — | 1568 |
| Overview | ||
| Company | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Release date | Nov 21 2023 | May 28 2026 |
| Access | Proprietary | Proprietary |
Frequently asked questions
Claude 2.1 and Claude Opus 4.8 don't publish scores on any of the same benchmarks, so there's no direct head-to-head comparison. Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a verified first-party API price: $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens. No pay-as-you-go API rate is tracked for Claude 2.1. Claude 2.1 shipped 919 days before Claude Opus 4.8, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.
Context windows are 200k (Claude 2.1) vs 1M (Claude Opus 4.8).
Direct benchmark comparisons are unavailable — Claude 2.1 and Claude Opus 4.8 don't publish scores on any of the same benchmarks.
Claude 2.1 was released by Anthropic on Nov 21 2023.
Claude Opus 4.8 was released by Anthropic on May 28 2026.
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a verified first-party API price: $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens. No pay-as-you-go API rate is tracked for Claude 2.1. Rates are pay-as-you-go API prices verified on August 18, 2026.
Claude 2.1 has a 200k context window; Claude Opus 4.8 has 1M.
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