Claude 3.5 SonnetvsClaude Opus 4.6
Claude 3.5 Sonnet | Claude Opus 4.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Benchmarks | ||
Nonsense detection BullshitBench v2Given 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. | 45% | 87%Best |
Coding SWE-Bench VerifiedReal coding tasks pulled from open-source projects — the AI has to find and fix actual bugs. A human-checked version of the original SWE-Bench. Higher is better. | 33.4% | 80.8%Best |
Next.js coding Next.js EvalsVercel'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. | — | 75% |
Web browsing BrowseCompCan the AI browse the web and track down hard-to-find answers? Higher is better. | — | 83.7% |
Multidisciplinary reasoning Humanity's Last Exam · with toolsHumanity'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. | — | 53% |
Science GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions in biology, physics, and chemistry — hard enough that subject-matter PhDs score around 65%. Higher is better. | 59.4% | 91.3%Best |
Community preference Arena Elo (Text)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. | — | 1504 |
Community preference (code) Arena Elo (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. | — | 1543 |
| Overview | ||
| Company | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Release date | Jun 20 2024 | Feb 5 2026 |
| Access | Proprietary | Proprietary |
Which is better: Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Claude Opus 4.6?
Claude Opus 4.6 leads Claude 3.5 Sonnet on 3 of the 3 benchmarks they both report (BullshitBench v2, SWE-Bench Verified, GPQA Diamond). Claude 3.5 Sonnet shipped 595 days before Claude Opus 4.6, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.
Published specifications for these two models are limited — see each model page for the latest details.
On BullshitBench v2, Claude Opus 4.6 leads at 87% vs Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 45%. On SWE-Bench Verified, Claude Opus 4.6 leads at 80.8% vs Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 33.4%. On GPQA Diamond, Claude Opus 4.6 leads at 91.3% vs Claude 3.5 Sonnet at 59.4%.
Frequently asked questions
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released by Anthropic on Jun 20 2024.
Claude Opus 4.6 was released by Anthropic on Feb 5 2026.
Claude Opus 4.6 leads on SWE-Bench Verified — Claude 3.5 Sonnet 33.4% vs Claude Opus 4.6 80.8%.
Claude Opus 4.6 leads on GPQA Diamond — Claude 3.5 Sonnet 59.4% vs Claude Opus 4.6 91.3%.