BenchLeader

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Muse Spark Open 816B A42B

Full profiles: Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) and Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (Meta): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 10 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 5.5 is ahead of Muse Spark Open 816B A42B on quality (69.2 vs 58.5 on the BenchLeader Index), but Muse Spark Open 816B A42B is 4.0× cheaper at $2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Claude Opus 5.5 leads in every category we measure both in.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

  • Claude Opus 5.5 scores 69.2 on the BenchLeader Index and Muse Spark Open 816B A42B scores 58.5 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Muse Spark Open 816B A42B costs $2.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Of the 6 benchmarks both models have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 6 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).

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
CodingClaude Opus 5.580 vs 66 category score; SciCode 66.9% vs 58.5%High
MathsClaude Opus 5.574 vs 59 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 91.2% vs 69.8%High
ReasoningClaude Opus 5.573 vs 64 category score; GPQA Diamond 90.6% vs 88.6%High
KnowledgeClaude Opus 5.574 vs 62 category score; SimpleQA Verified 72.2% vs 56.6%High
Lowest costMuse Spark Open 816B A42B$2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.092 vs $0.320–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max) leads on quality: 69.2 vs 58.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh) is 4.0× cheaper ($2.00 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5.5Muse Spark Open 816B A42B
DeveloperAnthropicMeta
Released22 Sept 202615 Oct 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Max output (tokens)128,000 (up to 300K on the Message Batches API (beta))–
Input typestext, image–
Reasoning effort settingslow, medium, high, xhigh, max–
Compared atClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)
Open weightsNoYes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$4.00 / $20.00 / $0.200$1.25 / $4.25 / $0.150
API model IDclaude-opus-5-5–
Where to use itClaude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry–

Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: docs.anthropic.com (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.

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 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)Leader
Reasoning72.963.6Claude Opus 5.5
Coding80.465.5Claude Opus 5.5
Agents & tools63.1–not comparable
Maths74.059.4Claude Opus 5.5
Knowledge74.162.2Claude Opus 5.5
Multimodal70.6–not comparable
Long context67.3–not comparable

Where sources disagree

Across the 6 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 6, Muse Spark Open 816B A42B leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5.5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)Leader
BenchLeader Index69.258.5Claude Opus 5.5

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 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)
Blended price per 1M tokens$8.00$2.00
Input / output per 1M$4.00 / $20.00$1.25 / $4.25
Cached input per 1M$0.200$0.150
Price per task: chat reply$0.0076$0.0018
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.060$0.018
Price per task: code edit$0.054$0.014
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.320$0.092
Price per task: structured extraction$0.012$0.0034
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$10.04–
Output speed98 tok/s–
Time to first answer648.2 s–
Time to a complete answer653.3 s–

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5.5 (max) scores 69.2 and takes 648 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5.5 (xhigh) scores 66.0 in 107 s, Claude Opus 5.5 (high) scores 65.6 in 34 s. Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh) scores 58.5. 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

128 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 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader69.258.5
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader63.1–
Coding scoreBenchLeader80.465.5
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader74.162.2
Long context scoreBenchLeader67.3–
Maths scoreBenchLeader74.059.4
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader70.6–
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader72.963.6
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$8.00$2.00
Output speedBenchLeader98 tok/s–
Time to first answerBenchLeader648.2 s–
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.6%88.6%
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1535†–
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench92.2%†–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench92.2%–
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis61.4%–
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis67.9%–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize91.7%–
CritPtArtificial Analysis31.7%–
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis61.0%–
MysteryMechanismVals AI49.5%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub67.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub71.0%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub68.2%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode66.9%58.5%
FrontierCodeCognition54.6%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1548†–
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1809–
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench96.3%†–
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench89.3%–
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis66.9%–
IOIVals AI95.1%†–
Code MigrationVals AI66.7%†–
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI81.0%†–
Show all 128 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh)
Coding
ProgramBenchVals AI18.5%†–
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI70.2%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI30.4%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI90.3%†–
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub77.4%–
CursorBenchCursor57.8%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2147.4†1590.1
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub62.3%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis59.6%–
Startrise FrontendStartrise71.1%†–
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis52.2%–
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis46.4%–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench64.8%–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS21.3%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor73.5%33.4%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)20.8–
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench72.8%†–
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench88.4%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench71.7%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI87.6%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL59.0%†–
GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised scoreArtificial Analysis68.3%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis1866–
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis38.2%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis56.3%–
CUA-benchVals AI14.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI55.4%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI67.8%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI9.2%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI3.8%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI50.5%†–
Robo-benchVals AI14.6%–
SREBenchVals AI33.6%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI45.6%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI65.2%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI47.1%†–
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI91.3%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1211†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs9235.3†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis69.5%–
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis26.2%–
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey4.2%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1800–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis59.0%–
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis58.3%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis26.9%–
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis0.8%–
FACTS SearchGoogle86.5%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.2%69.8%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.0%31.7%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub100.0%98.1%
ProofBenchVals AI100.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench97.1%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1512†–
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub72.2%56.6%
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%†–
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench85.0%†–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis48.1–
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL47.6%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†–
ClaimBenchVals AI100.0%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI75.9%†–
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI75.8%†–
MedCodeVals AI49.8%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.4%†–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI70.6%†–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub71.4%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.6%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis65.5%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis49.7%–
HealthBench Professional (AA)OpenAI59.9%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench86.3%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench65.7%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1521†–
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1509†–
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1340†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1520†–
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1503†–
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1524†–
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1321†–
LiveBench DesignLiveBench86.9%†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis87.7%–
SAGEVals AI91.3%†–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub51.2%†–
Code2Video-AAArtificial Analysis1536–
AA-3DArtificial Analysis1196–
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis84.7%–
MLCRArtificial Analysis27.8%–
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub168.8†–
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench85.1%†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench83.2%–
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis58.4–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis57.6–
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis350–
Vals IndexVals AI70.2†–
Vals Finance IndexVals AI65.6%†–
Vals RSI IndexVals AI37.3%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI58.6%†–
Vals Router IndexVals AI64.2%†–
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis28.7–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL5.8%–

Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 5 new results (AA Intelligence Index v5.0, AA Progress Index v1, HLE-Diamond (AA)…); 3 score revisions; cost per task moved from $5.98/M to $10.04/M (68% up).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 2 new results (Robo-bench, Vals RSI Index).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 2 score revisions.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 2 score revisions.
  • Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh): BenchLeader Index 57.4 → 58.6.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 1 new result (FORTRESS).
  • Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh): 2 new results (SciCode, ALE-Bench).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Muse Spark Open 816B A42B (xhigh): first results.

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

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Muse Spark Open 816B A42B: questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Muse Spark Open 816B A42B?
Claude Opus 5.5 (max) leads on quality: 69.2 vs 58.5. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5.5 (max) is ahead overall as of 29 Oct 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
Claude Opus 5.5 vs Muse Spark Open 816B A42B: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Muse Spark Open 816B A42B is cheaper today: $2.00 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Muse Spark Open 816B A42B better for coding?
Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in coding (80 vs 66 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 66.9% for Claude Opus 5.5 against 58.5% for Muse Spark Open 816B A42B.
Which is better for long documents?
Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Opus 5.5 1,000,000, Muse Spark Open 816B A42B 1,048,576.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 5.5 vs Muse Spark Open 816B A42B?
Across the 6 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 6, Muse Spark Open 816B A42B leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5.5 ahead.
More questions (1)
When was Muse Spark Open 816B A42B released?
Muse Spark Open 816B A42B was released on 15 Oct 2026.