BenchLeader

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-6 Astra

Full profiles: Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) and GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 12 sources

As of 24 Oct 2026, GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality (70.4 vs 63.3 on the BenchLeader Index), but Claude Opus 4.8 (max) costs 2.0× less, so it is the better buy unless you need the extra quality. GPT-6 Astra leads in every category we measure both in.

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGPT-6 Astra74 vs 59 category score; SciCode 56.5% vs 53.5%High
Agents & tool useGPT-6 Astra64 vs 57 category score; Terminal-Bench 58.2% vs 23.6%High
MathsGPT-6 Astra72 vs 68 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 93.7% vs 80.0%Medium
ReasoningGPT-6 Astra76 vs 69 category score; GPQA Diamond 95.8% vs 91.0%Medium
KnowledgeGPT-6 Astra80 vs 67 category score; SimpleQA Verified 75.6% vs 53.0%High
Long documentsGPT-6 Astra65 vs 64 category score; AA-LCR 80.7% vs 77.7%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only GPT-6 Astra has an Arena rating (67 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costClaude Opus 4.8$10.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.400 vs $0.800–
Fastest first answerClaude Opus 4.827.5 s (Claude Opus 4.8 (max)) vs 247.0 s (GPT-6 Astra (max)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.4 vs 63.3.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max) is stronger in instruction following.
  • GPT-6 Astra (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, knowledge, long context, maths, reasoning, human preference, multimodal.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max) is 2.0× cheaper ($10.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 4.8GPT-6 Astra
DeveloperAnthropicOpenAI
Released28 May 20262 Sept 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,050,000
Compared atClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)Leader
Reasoning68.876.2GPT-6 Astra
Coding58.974.0GPT-6 Astra
Agents & tools56.564.2GPT-6 Astra
Maths68.171.8GPT-6 Astra
Knowledge66.979.5GPT-6 Astra
Instruction following62.1–not comparable
Human preference–66.7not comparable
Multimodal–66.0not comparable
Long context63.865.4GPT-6 Astra
Composite76.288.4GPT-6 Astra

Where sources disagree

Across the 38 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.8 leads 2, GPT-6 Astra leads 36. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.8 leads on Arena Text; GPT-6 Astra leads on BenchLeader Index and AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2.

Overall indexClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)Leader
BenchLeader Index63.370.4GPT-6 Astra
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.241.852.7GPT-6 Astra
Arena Text1482†1477Claude Opus 4.8

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$20.00
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$10.00 / $50.00
Cached input per 1M$0.500$1.00
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.019
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.150
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.135
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.800
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.030
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$4.08$3.26
Output speed63 tok/s58 tok/s
Time to first answer27.5 s247.0 s
Time to a complete answer35.4 s255.6 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Opus 4.8 (max) cost $4.08 and GPT-6 Astra (max) $3.26, because Claude Opus 4.8 (max) used about 2.5× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 4.8 (max) scores 63.3 and takes 28 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 4.8 (high) scores 60.7 in 1 s, Claude Opus 4.8 scores 60.1 in 1 s. GPT-6 Astra (max) scores 70.4 and takes 247 s to its first answer token; GPT-6 Astra (high) scores 69.6 in 35 s, GPT-6 Astra (xhigh) scores 68.9 in 130 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

164 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader63.370.4
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader56.564.2
Coding scoreBenchLeader58.974.0
Composite scoreBenchLeader76.288.4
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader62.1–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader66.979.5
Long context scoreBenchLeader63.865.4
Maths scoreBenchLeader68.171.8
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader68.876.2
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–66.7
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–66.0
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$20.00
Output speedBenchLeader63 tok/s58 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader27.5 s247.0 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.0%95.8%
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS–54.8%†
SimpleBenchSimpleBench64.8%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1505†1501
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.2%†92.7%†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.2%92.7%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.0%96.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis48.7%54.7%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI92.4%†–
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL23.5%†–
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark88.8%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize92.5%97.5%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize72.1%†95.0%
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize1.5%†98.6%
CritPtArtificial Analysis20.9%31.7%
MysteryMechanismVals AI–53.1%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%74.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub36.0%84.0%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub57.5%64.1%†
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub94.9%97.1%†
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.3%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.0%†13.5%†
Coding
SciCodeSciCode53.5%56.5%
WeirdMLWeirdML70.5%†93.3%
FrontierCodeCognition46.5%†53.3%
Show all 164 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 4.8 (max)GPT-6 Astra (max)
Coding
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench47.1%†79.4%†
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1529†1543
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1536†1775
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench77.3%†93.7%†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.8%80.4%
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis54.4%56.5%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI87.8%†–
IOIVals AI–100.0%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI88.6%†–
Code MigrationVals AI47.3%†67.7%
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI–80.6%
ProgramBenchVals AI1.0%†5.5%
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI–43.3%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI–27.6%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI82.7%†89.6%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL57.3%†59.1%†
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL46.7%†59.0%†
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL49.6%†50.7%†
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–46.7%†
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.5%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%73.2%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub1563.8†2951.3
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–65.5%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis21.7%59.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis84.6%88.4%
Startrise FrontendStartrise–79.9%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–47.0%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench23.6%58.2%
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld20.6%–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS8.3%†20.8%†
APEX-AgentsMercor48.9%64.7%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)–14.7
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench48.3%†82.4%†
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench96.0%†84.0%†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench50.5%57.3%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis58.3%–
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis94.4%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI71.9%†87.3%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL82.2%–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL35.3%†65.3%†
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench39.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis–53.7%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis34.2%41.4%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–48.6%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis45.0%51.3%
CUA-benchVals AI–19.2%
CyberBenchVals AI–41.1%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI53.9%†53.5%
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI–60.4%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–7.1%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI9.6%†5.4%
Legal Research BenchVals AI43.8%†39.4%
Robo-benchVals AI–23.3%
SkillsBenchVals AI59.2%†–
SREBenchVals AI–56.9%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI30.0%†20.7%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI70.0%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI23.2%†59.6%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI4.3%†62.9%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI11.8%†90.5%
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1195†1246
BALROGBALROG–68.3%
DeepResearch BenchDeepResearch Bench50.2%†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub32.9%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub70.9%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs2992.315514.7†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis45.6%68.5%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis22.8%31.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey–8.6%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis44.0%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis–1568
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–63.3%
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–63.3%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–36.9%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis–0.0%
FACTS SearchGoogle79.6%†89.9%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub80.0%93.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub56.1%97.6%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.3%100.0%
ProofBenchVals AI69.0%99.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench94.3%96.8%
AIME 2026MathArena100.0%–
HMMT February 2026MathArena95.5%–
MathArena ApexMathArena81.3%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1477†1487
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub53.0%75.6%
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench66.0%†83.0%†
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench81.8%†85.2%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench66.0%83.0%
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis28.843.4
MMLU-ProVals AI89.6%†–
LegalBenchVals AI83.6%†–
CorpFinVals AI66.7%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.6%†–
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL–47.5%†
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL–48.4%†
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–79.3%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI69.4%†71.7%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–72.7%
MedCodeVals AI53.2%†48.5%
MedScribeVals AI85.8%†87.9%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI68.1%†–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL46.8%68.7%
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub28.6%76.2%
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%34.2%
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis48.8%62.6%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis60.8%48.7%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench79.7%89.4%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench72.0%75.6%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis62.2%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1478†1473
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1474†1477
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1281†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1463†1450
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1495†1485
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1499†1489
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1289†1280
LiveBench DesignLiveBench78.8%†82.0%†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–86.9%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI86.6%†–
MortgageTaxVals AI69.9%†–
SAGEVals AI54.8%†46.4%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.5%†49.7%†
AA-3DArtificial Analysis–1166
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis77.7%80.7%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1475†1473
MLCRArtificial Analysis19.4%41.7%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub159.0†168.8†
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench76.8%†86.1%†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench76.2%82.2%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis41.852.7
Vals IndexVals AI–65.0
Vals Finance IndexVals AI–55.6%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI24.0%27.1%
Vals Science IndexVals AI–65.1%
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI70.9%†–
Vals Router IndexVals AI–65.0%†
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis–33.4
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL18.2%–

Data as of 2026-10-24. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • GPT-6 Astra (max): 9 new results (Code Migration v1.1, Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1, Finance Agent v2.1…).
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 1 score revision.
  • GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
  • GPT-6 Astra (max): 4 score revisions.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): BenchLeader Index 62.5 → 63.4.
  • GPT-6 Astra (max): BenchLeader Index 69.8 → 70.6.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 5 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR…).
  • GPT-6 Astra (max): 1 score revision.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-6 Astra: questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than GPT-6 Astra?
GPT-6 Astra (max) leads on quality: 70.4 vs 63.3. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6 Astra (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-24, but check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-6 Astra, and will that change?
Claude Opus 4.8 is cheaper today: $10.00 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than GPT-6 Astra for coding?
GPT-6 Astra scores higher in coding (74 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 53.5% for Claude Opus 4.8 against 56.5% for GPT-6 Astra.
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than GPT-6 Astra for agents and tool use?
GPT-6 Astra scores higher in agentic tasks (64 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Terminal-Bench, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 23.6% for Claude Opus 4.8 against 58.2% for GPT-6 Astra.
Which is better for long documents?
GPT-6 Astra scores higher on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 64). Both take about 1.1M tokens: Claude Opus 4.8 1,000,000, GPT-6 Astra 1,050,000.
Which has lower latency?
Claude Opus 4.8 (max) answers first: 27.5 s against 247.0 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or GPT-6 Astra?
Claude Opus 4.8 streams faster: 63 against 58 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-6 Astra?
Across the 38 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.8 leads 2, GPT-6 Astra leads 36. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.8 leads on Arena Text; GPT-6 Astra leads on BenchLeader Index and AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2.
When was GPT-6 Astra released?
GPT-6 Astra was released on 2 Sept 2026.