Best LLM overall (October 2026)
As of 12 Oct 2026, the best LLM overall on independent benchmarks is Claude Opus 5.5 (max) by Anthropic (BenchLeader Index 72.0), ahead of Claude Fable 5.1 (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.8) and GPT-6 Astra (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.2).
Ranked on the BenchLeader Index: every independent quality benchmark a model has results on, standardised per benchmark and averaged by category. One row per model, at its best-scoring reasoning effort.
422 models qualify · data as of 12 Oct 2026 · rebuilt once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC)
Claude Opus 5.5 max#1 here: BenchLeader Index 72.0Best value
MiMo-V2.6-Pro most index points per dollar among the top 15 (64.8 at $0.548/M)Best open weights
Kimi K3 maxhighest-ranked model here you can run yourself (#13)Fastest of the top 15
Muse Spark 1.3 max175 output tokens per second| # | Model | Index | Price $/M | Speed tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Claude Opus 5.5maxAnthropic | 72.0 | $8.00 | 96 |
| 2 | Claude Fable 5.1maxAnthropic | 70.8 | $20.00 | 70 |
| 3 |  GPT-6 AstramaxOpenAI | 70.2 | $20.00 | 47 |
| 4 |  Gemini 4 ArgonhighGoogle | 70.0 | $4.00 | – |
| 5 | GPT-6.1 SolmaxOpenAI | 69.3 | $4.00 | 56 |
| 6 | Claude Fable 5maxAnthropic | 69.1 | $20.00 | 65 |
| 7 | Claude Opus 5highAnthropic | 68.3 | $10.00 | 54 |
| 8 | Muse Spark 1.3maxMeta | 67.7 | $2.00 | 175 |
| 9 | Claude Sonnet 5.5maxAnthropic | 67.6 | $4.00 | 141 |
| 10 | GPT-5.6 SolmaxOpenAI | 67.5 | $8.00 | 74 |
| 11 | GPT-5.5xhighOpenAI | 65.9 | $11.25 | 88 |
| 12 | GPT-6 SolmaxOpenAI | 65.6 | $4.00 | 86 |
| 13 | Kimi K3maxMoonshot AI | 65.5 | $6.00 | 41 |
| 14 | GPT-5.5 ProxhighOpenAI | 65.5 | $67.50 | 23 |
| 15 | MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi | 64.8 | $0.548 | 43 |
Full ranked list (422 models) · Claude Opus 5.5 vs Claude Fable 5.1 · Methodology
Best LLM overall: questions
- What is the best LLM overall in October 2026?
- As of 12 Oct 2026, the best LLM overall on independent benchmarks is Claude Opus 5.5 (max) by Anthropic (BenchLeader Index 72.0), ahead of Claude Fable 5.1 (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.8) and GPT-6 Astra (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.2). BenchLeader reconciles 210 benchmarks from 42 benchmark publishers and rebuilds the ranking once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC).
- Which is the best value?
- MiMo-V2.6-Pro gives the most BenchLeader Index points per dollar among the top 15 here: 64.8 at $0.548 per million tokens blended, against $8.00 for Claude Opus 5.5.
- What is the best open-weights option?
- Kimi K3 (max) by Moonshot AI is the highest-ranked open-weights model on this list, at #13.
- How is this ranked?
- Ranked on the BenchLeader Index: every independent quality benchmark a model has results on, standardised per benchmark and averaged by category. One row per model, at its best-scoring reasoning effort. Every score comes from an independent publisher and links to its source on the model page; self-reported launch numbers are excluded.
Cite as: BenchLeader, “Best LLM overall (October 2026)”, https://www.benchleader.com/best/llm, data as of 12 Oct 2026.