Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6
Why this pair: Consecutive Claude Opus releases
Benchmark Performance
Available Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Document Arenadocument-2026-07-30-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,461.6597% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-5-20251101; 95% CI [1451.22442739, 1472.08183979]; votes 7965; rank 19 | 1,505.91100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-6-thinking; 95% CI [1498.85646357, 1512.96777060]; votes 24973; rank 3 |
| LMArena Search Arenasearch-2026-08-24-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,179.6494% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-5-search; 95% CI [1174.02872051, 1185.26030035]; votes 61573; rank 19 | 1,253.42100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-6-search; 95% CI [1248.44594166, 1258.38585709]; votes 134699; rank 2 |
| LMArena Text Arenatext-2026-09-01-011508720696 · arena_rating · leader | 1,447.1997% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-5-20251101-high-32k; 95% CI [1443.28922560, 1451.09589305]; votes 36271; rank 46 | 1,497.70100% of row best · rating · claude-opus-4-6; 95% CI [1494.29292018, 1501.10380984]; votes 76032; rank 4 |
| LiveBench2026-06-25 · overall · leader | 77.3998% of row best · percent · claude-opus-4-5-20251101-thinking-64k-high-effort · 15,203 output tokens / case | 78.69100% of row best · percent · claude-opus-4-6-thinking-auto-high-effort · 9,651 output tokens / case |
| Overall ResultCounted from the protocol-matched rows above | 0 benchmark wins | 4 benchmark winsOverall lead |
Third-party benchmark Only like-for-like primary-publisher results are shown; raw scores, relative scores, configuration, and token spend remain visible.
Technical Differences
Side-by-Side Facts
| Field | Claude Opus 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Family | Claude 4 | Claude 4 |
| Model | Claude Opus 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Version | Claude Opus 4.5 | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| Lifecycle | active | active |
| Released | 2025-11-24 | 2026-02-05 |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2025-05-01 | 2025-05-01 |
| Input modalities | Unknown | Unknown |
| Output modalities | Unknown | Unknown |
| Context window | 200,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Total parameters | Unknown | Unknown |
| Active parameters | Unknown | Unknown |
| License | Unknown | Unknown |
| Open weights | No | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Provider access | Anthropic (Standard) | Anthropic (Standard) |
| Capabilities | chat, generation, reasoning, structured_outputs, tools | chat, generation, reasoning, structured_outputs, tools |
13 comparable fields · 4 material differences · Interactive comparison only; indexing gate not met
Claude Opus 4.5 Capabilities
Claude Opus 4.6 Capabilities
Internal Comparison Graph
Related Comparisons
| A | Pair | B | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 4.7Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 4.7Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic | vs | Claude Sonnet 4.5Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | Claude Opus 4.8Anthropic | family variantsimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic | vs |  o3OpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic | vs | o3-proOpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs |  Qwen3.7 FlashQwen | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | Grok 4.3xAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | GPT-5.4OpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | GPT-5.4 ProOpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Claude Opus 4.6Anthropic | vs | GPT-5.5OpenAI | cross-developer peersimage, text |
Primary Evidence
Sources and Freshness
Questions
Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 FAQs
Is Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6 better for coding?+
This comparison does not currently contain a protocol-matched coding benchmark for both Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6, so Model Markets cannot name a coding leader from pricing, context size, or capability labels alone.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
Neither model has a directly sourced input price in this comparison. Neither model has a directly sourced output price in this comparison.
Which has a larger context window, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
Claude Opus 4.6 has the larger sourced context window. Claude Opus 4.5 supports 200,000 and Claude Opus 4.6 supports 1,000,000.
Which performs better in benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
Claude Opus 4.6 leads the current overall benchmark count. The result uses 4 protocol-matched benchmarks from 2 publishers; it is not a universal quality score.
Can Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6 be self-hosted?+
Both models have the same recorded self-hosting status: unsupported. Claude Opus 4.5 is not marked open weight; Claude Opus 4.6 is not marked open weight.
Can Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6 understand images?+
Claude Opus 4.5 is not documented with image input; Claude Opus 4.6 is not documented with image input. This reflects supported input modalities, not vision quality.
Which can generate longer answers, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
Claude Opus 4.6 has the larger sourced maximum output: Claude Opus 4.5 supports 64,000 and Claude Opus 4.6 supports 128,000 output tokens.
Do Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6 support reasoning and tool use?+
Claude Opus 4.5: reasoning and tool calling. Claude Opus 4.6: reasoning and tool calling. Feature support does not establish relative quality.
Which is available from more inference providers, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
Claude Opus 4.5 has 1 sourced provider route; Claude Opus 4.6 has 1, a tie.
Which offers better value, Claude Opus 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6?+
There is no universal value winner. Compare the input and output prices above with the matched benchmark result for your workload: cheaper tokens can be offset by different quality, token usage, latency, or provider availability.