Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Claude 4 Opus

1. Most capable Sonnet model yet

• Anthropic describes Sonnet 4.6 as its most capable Sonnet model.
• It is a full upgrade across coding, computer use, long-context reasoning, agent planning, knowledge work, and design.

2. Stronger coding and professional task performance at Sonnet pricing

• Pricing remains at $3/M input and $15/M output, matching Sonnet 4.5.
• Anthropic says early-access developers strongly preferred it to Sonnet 4.5, and often even to Opus 4.5 for practical work.

3. Long-context, agent-friendly reasoning

• Supports up to a 1M token context window in beta.
• Anthropic reports better consistency, fewer false claims of success, fewer hallucinations, and more reliable follow-through on multi-step tasks.

4. Modern API controls for adaptive work

• Supports adaptive thinking and the effort parameter for balancing speed, cost, and depth.
• Gains dynamic filtering for web search and web fetch, helping agent workflows keep only relevant information in context.

• Highest capability in the family: described as “our most powerful model yet” by Anthropic.
• Exceptional at long-running tasks requiring thousands of steps and sustained focus (e.g., continuous codebase work for hours).
• Excellent performance on benchmarks: e.g., SWE-bench 72.5 % and Terminal-bench 43.2 %.
• Designed for complex agentic workflows, deep reasoning, tool use, and large context windows.
• Placed under a higher safety classification (ASL-3) due to its frontier capability and risk profile.