Claude Opus 5 wins on price ($5 vs $10/1M input). For most workflows, Claude Mythos 5.1 is the stronger default — fable 5.1 with the safeguards lifted — partner-only, 60.9% terminal-bench 4.0.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
Claude Mythos 5.1 is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Grok 4.5 is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
Claude Opus 5 is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
Claude Mythos 5.1 leads on coding with a score of 100 vs 100 for Claude Opus 5.
Claude Opus 5 is cheaper at $5/1M input tokens vs $10/1M for Claude Mythos 5.1.
Claude Mythos 5.1 is the stronger default for coding tasks.
Choose Claude Mythos 5.1 for vetted frontier cybersecurity and life-sciences research at the absolute capability ceiling. Its coding and research scores are what carry the recommendation here.
Claude Opus 5 earns its place when your work is mostly complex agentic coding and enterprise agent workflows, even though it loses the overall count here.
Claude Opus 5 is the more cost-efficient option at $5/1M input — Claude Mythos 5.1 costs 2x more per input token, so the gap is worth taking seriously wherever token volume rather than peak quality drives the bill.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the top answer changes when you care more about cost, speed, or long-document work.
Anthropic / Premium / Aug 6, 2026
Best premium model for agentic coding — near-Fable 5 quality at half the price.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You need fast interactive latency (Sonnet 5 is quicker and one-fifth the price) or absolute frontier ceiling (Fable 5).
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
Fable 5.1 with the safeguards lifted — partner-only, 60.9% Terminal-Bench 4.0.
Best premium model for agentic coding — near-Fable 5 quality at half the price.
Every figure below is the provider's list price or a published capability score — the same numbers the recommendation on this page is built from.
| Model | Input | Output | Est. month | Context | Speed | Coding | Writing | Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Mythos 5.1Anthropic | $10.00/1M | $50.00/1M | $200 | 1M tokens | Deliberate | 100 | 97 | 99 |
| Claude Opus 5Anthropic | $5.00/1M | $25.00/1M | $100 | 1M tokens | Deliberate | 100 | 96 | 98 |
Capability scores are out of 100 and reflect our own weighting of published benchmarks and production signals — see how we evaluate models. “Est. month” assumes 10M input and 2M output tokens at list price, with no batch or caching discounts applied, so treat it as a ceiling.
What each one is genuinely good at, where it falls down, and the situations we would steer you away from it — not just the headline score.
The unrestricted twin of Claude Fable 5.1 — the same model with safeguards lifted in high-risk areas, released September 1, 2026 to vetted cybersecurity and life-sciences organisations under Anthropic's trusted-access programme. Scores 60.9% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, the highest agentic-coding result Anthropic has published.
You don't hold vetted trusted access, or your work never trips Fable 5.1's safeguards — the two models are otherwise identical.
The highest published agentic-coding score anywhere — 60.9% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 — but you almost certainly cannot get it. Mythos 5.1 is Fable 5.1 with safeguards lifted, gated to vetted cybersecurity and life-sciences organisations. Unless you hold trusted access and hit refusals that block real research, Fable 5.1 is the same model at the same price.
Released September 1, 2026 alongside Claude Fable 5.1, continuing the Mythos-class line that began with Project Glasswing's April 2026 private preview. Access is limited to vetted US cybersecurity and life-sciences professionals. Same underlying model, pricing, context window, and cache-read discount as Fable 5.1; the only published difference is the safeguard level and the resulting Terminal-Bench 4.0 score (60.9% vs 55.8%).
Anthropic's flagship-tier Opus that comes close to Claude Fable 5's frontier intelligence at half the price — the new default for complex agentic coding and enterprise agents.
You need fast interactive latency (Sonnet 5 is quicker and one-fifth the price) or absolute frontier ceiling (Fable 5).
The new premium coding default. Opus 5 takes the SWE-bench Verified lead from Opus 4.8 at the same $5/$25 price, and gets within half a point of Fable 5 on agentic coding at half the cost. Choose Fable 5 only when absolute frontier intelligence matters more than budget.
Released July 24, 2026 at Opus 4.8's exact pricing. 1M context at standard rates, 128K max output. Anthropic's alignment audit calls it their most aligned model to date. Default model on Claude Max plans.
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Claude Mythos 5.1 wins on more of the categories we score — coding, research, long context — so it is the better default of the two. Claude Opus 5 is the better pick when your work is mostly complex agentic coding and enterprise agent workflows. Neither is universally "better": Claude Mythos 5.1 is aimed at vetted frontier cybersecurity and life-sciences research at the absolute capability ceiling, Claude Opus 5 at complex agentic coding and enterprise agent workflows.
Claude Opus 5 is cheaper at $5/1M input and $25/1M output. Claude Mythos 5.1 costs $10/1M input and $50/1M output.
Both Claude Mythos 5.1 and Claude Opus 5 have the same 1M context window.
Claude Mythos 5.1 and Claude Opus 5 are similarly matched on coding. Claude Fable 5.1 is the overall coding leader in this directory at 100/100.
Both Claude Mythos 5.1 and Claude Opus 5 have similar speed profiles — rated deliberate. Neither will be the bottleneck if latency is your deciding factor.
Not generally available — restricted to vetted US organisations under Project Glasswing. No advantage for ordinary work; Fable 5.1 is the same model at the same price for everyone else. Same deliberate, high-latency profile and premium pricing as Fable 5.1. Avoid it if you don't hold vetted trusted access, or your work never trips Fable 5.1's safeguards — the two models are otherwise identical. That is the main case for looking at Claude Opus 5 instead.
Still short of Claude Fable 5's absolute frontier ceiling on the hardest long-running agent tasks. Fast mode (research preview) doubles pricing to $10/$50, erasing the cost advantage over Fable 5. Avoid it if you need fast interactive latency (Sonnet 5 is quicker and one-fifth the price) or absolute frontier ceiling (Fable 5). Against Claude Mythos 5.1 specifically, the two are close enough on capability that price and speed decide it.
Take a moderate workload of 10M input and 2M output tokens a month. Claude Mythos 5.1 runs $200.00 (at $10/1M in and $50/1M out); Claude Opus 5 runs $100.00 (at $5/1M in and $25/1M out). That is a $100.00/month difference — Claude Opus 5 is the cheaper of the two at this volume, and the gap scales linearly as you send more. Output tokens dominate the bill on both, so prompt length matters far less than response length.
Yes, and for most teams that beats picking one. A common split is Claude Mythos 5.1 for vetted frontier cybersecurity and life-sciences research at the absolute capability ceiling, with Claude Opus 5 handling complex agentic coding and enterprise agent workflows. Routing high-volume, low-stakes calls to Claude Opus 5 at $5/1M and reserving Claude Mythos 5.1 for the hard cases is usually the cheapest arrangement that does not cost you quality.