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Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5-Codex

Full profiles: Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic) and GPT-5-Codex (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 5 is ahead of GPT-5-Codex on quality (65.5 vs 58.6 on the BenchLeader Index), but GPT-5-Codex is 2.9× cheaper at $3.44 vs $10.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose Claude Opus 5 for coding (70 vs 59), multimodal (68 vs 56), and long context (65 vs 61); choose GPT-5-Codex for fast first answers (10.9 s vs 43.9 s) and agents & tools (67 vs 64), where it also streams 3×+ faster.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

  • Claude Opus 5 scores 65.5 on the BenchLeader Index and GPT-5-Codex scores 58.6 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Claude Opus 5 costs $10.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • GPT-5-Codex costs $3.44 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • GPT-5-Codex streams 3×+ faster than Claude Opus 5 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Of the 7 benchmarks both models have, Claude Opus 5 leads 7 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Claude Opus 5 benchmarks max Anthropic GPT-5-Codex benchmarks high OpenAIOpen in the comparison tool

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 570 vs 59 category score; WeirdML 91.8% vs 54.5%High
Agents & tool useGPT-5-Codex67 vs 64 category scoreMedium
Long documentsClaude Opus 565 vs 61 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 79.3% vs 71.7%Medium
Images and other mediaClaude Opus 568 vs 56 category score; MMMU-Pro 84.7% vs 73.8%High
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Claude Opus 5 has an Arena rating (68 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costGPT-5-Codex$3.44 vs $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.115 vs $0.400–
Fastest first answerGPT-5-Codex10.9 s (GPT-5-Codex (high)) vs 43.9 s (Claude Opus 5 (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

  • Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 65.5 vs 58.6.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max) is stronger in coding, human preference, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • GPT-5-Codex (high) is stronger in agents & tools, instruction following.
  • GPT-5-Codex (high) is 2.9× cheaper ($3.44 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).
  • GPT-5-Codex (high) streams 3.5× faster (195 vs 56 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5GPT-5-Codex
DeveloperAnthropicOpenAI
Released24 Jul 202615 Sept 2025
Context window (tokens)1,000,000400,000
Compared atClaude Opus 5 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$1.25 / $10.00 / $0.125

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 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)Leader
Reasoning69.2–not comparable
Coding70.058.5Claude Opus 5
Agents & tools64.366.8GPT-5-Codex
Maths70.4–not comparable
Knowledge65.0–not comparable
Instruction following–72.4not comparable
Human preference68.4–not comparable
Multimodal67.656.4Claude Opus 5
Long context64.560.5Claude Opus 5

Where sources disagree

Across the 7 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 7, GPT-5-Codex leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)Leader
BenchLeader Index65.558.6Claude Opus 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 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$3.44
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$1.25 / $10.00
Cached input per 1M$0.500$0.125
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0035
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.021
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.022
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.115
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0045
Output speed56 tok/s195 tok/s
Time to first answer43.9 s10.9 s
Time to a complete answer52.8 s13.4 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5 (max) scores 65.5 and takes 44 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5 scores 65.2 in 3 s, Claude Opus 5 (high) scores 64.4 in 14 s. GPT-5-Codex (high) scores 58.6 and takes 11 s to its first answer token. 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

123 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 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader65.558.6
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader64.366.8
Coding scoreBenchLeader70.058.5
Human preference scoreBenchLeader68.4–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader65.0–
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.560.5
Maths scoreBenchLeader70.4–
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader67.656.4
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader69.2–
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–72.4
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$3.44
Output speedBenchLeader56 tok/s195 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader43.9 s10.9 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens400,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.9%–
SimpleBenchSimpleBench80.6%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1515–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.2%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis93.2%83.7%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis54.9%27.9%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.4%†–
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark–70.3%†
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize90.4%–
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize30.2%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis29.1%5.1%
MysteryMechanismVals AI37.4%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.3%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub97.6%–
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.5%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub12.0%†–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode56.4%–
WeirdMLWeirdML91.8%54.5%
FrontierCodeCognition53.4%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1528–
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1690–
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.5%–
Show all 123 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)GPT-5-Codex (high)
Coding
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.0%†84.7%
IOIVals AI84.3%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI97.0%†–
Code MigrationVals AI57.5%†–
ProgramBenchVals AI3.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI28.5%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI88.4%†–
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL63.2%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL62.2%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.7%–
CursorBenchCursor46.6%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2164.6†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis49.0%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis89.1%–
Startrise FrontendStartrise82.3%†–
LiveCodeBench (AA)Artificial Analysis–84.0%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench51.8%44.3%†
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld31.4%–
APEX-AgentsMercor65.8%–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)8.2–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench65.2%–
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis–37.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis–86.8%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI84.6%†–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL85.8%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL57.0%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench48.7%–
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis42.1%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis53.8%–
CUA-benchVals AI9.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI65.4%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI6.7%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.3%†–
SkillsBenchVals AI60.4%†–
SREBenchVals AI12.2%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI45.5%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI53.5%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI27.1%†–
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI18.8%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1214†–
BALROGBALROG63.4%–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub35.0%†–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub79.6%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs11181.9†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis56.6%–
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis21.6%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis47.5%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1655–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis28.6%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis25.9%–
FACTS SearchGoogle85.3%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.6%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.2%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%–
ProofBenchVals AI99.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench95.7%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1517–
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.9%–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench74.5%–
MMLU-ProVals AI91.6%†–
LegalBenchVals AI87.0%†–
CorpFinVals AI73.2%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.1%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.6%†–
MedCodeVals AI63.6%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.0%†–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI76.9%†–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL53.7%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.7%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench88.7%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench63.8%–
IFBenchArtificial Analysis–74.2%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1495–
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1491–
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1365†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1474–
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1487–
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1503–
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1320†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis84.7%73.8%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.9%†–
MortgageTaxVals AI72.1%†–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.4%†–
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis79.3%71.7%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1490†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis11.1%–
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub163.9†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench80.1%–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis50.824.9
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis333.7275.1
Vals RSI IndexVals AI33.0%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI47.9%†–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI73.9%†–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL16.8%†–

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 (max): BenchLeader Index 66.3 → 65.5.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • GPT-5-Codex (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): BenchLeader Index 66.8 → 66.3.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench); 1 score revision.
  • GPT-5-Codex (high): BenchLeader Index 59.0 → 58.5.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 4 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised score, AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy, AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination…).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.

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

Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5-Codex: questions

Is Claude Opus 5 better than GPT-5-Codex?
Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 65.5 vs 58.6. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5 (max) is ahead overall as of 29 Oct 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5-Codex: which is cheaper, and will that change?
GPT-5-Codex is cheaper today: $3.44 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5-Codex better for coding?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher in coding (70 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On WeirdML, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 91.8% for Claude Opus 5 against 54.5% for GPT-5-Codex.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5-Codex?
GPT-5-Codex streams 3×+ faster (195 vs 56 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is Claude Opus 5 or GPT-5-Codex better for agents and tool use?
GPT-5-Codex scores higher in agentic tasks (67 vs 64 on the category index, where 50 is average).
More questions (4)
Which is better for long documents?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 61). Claude Opus 5 accepts more context: 1,000,000 against 400,000 tokens for GPT-5-Codex.
Which has lower latency?
GPT-5-Codex answers first: 10.9 s against 43.9 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.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 5 vs GPT-5-Codex?
Across the 7 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 7, GPT-5-Codex leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.
When was Claude Opus 5 released?
Claude Opus 5 was released on 24 Jul 2026.