GPT-5.4 wins on coding (90 vs 58) and writing quality and price ($2.5 vs $5/1M input) and context window (272K vs 128K). For most workflows, GPT-5.4 is the stronger default — best for agentic automation and desktop control workflows.
Pick GPT-5.4 for coding and research. Pick GPT-4o when multimodal tasks and image-adjacent workflows.
Best for agentic automation and desktop control workflows.
Use GPT-5.4 if you want the strongest default. Switch only when cost, speed, or context length matters more than maximum reliability.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
GPT-5.4 is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Grok 4 is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
GPT-4o is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
GPT-5.4 leads on coding with a score of 90 vs 58 for GPT-4o.
GPT-5.4 has the larger context window: 272K vs 128K for GPT-4o.
GPT-5.4 is cheaper at $2.5/1M input tokens vs $5/1M for GPT-4o.
Choose GPT-5.4 for coding and research — agentic workflows.
Choose GPT-4o when multimodal tasks and image-adjacent workflows.
Both models serve different primary workflows — consider using each where it has a clear edge.
This comparison focuses on the models most likely to answer this search intent well, not every model in the directory.
Best all-around pick for image-heavy and multimodal workflows.
Best for agentic automation and desktop control workflows.
Use these cards as the practical decision layer: what each leading option is good at, and when it becomes the wrong default.
Best all-around pick for image-heavy and multimodal workflows.
Multimodal tasks and image-adjacent workflows
You need the latest reasoning or coding performance — GPT-5.4 replaces it for serious work.
Best for agentic automation and desktop control workflows.
Agentic workflows, desktop automation, and complex multi-step reasoning
You need the highest coding benchmark scores — Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 lead SWE-bench.
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
Benchmark scores from SWE-bench (coding), ARC-AGI-2 (reasoning), and MMLU (knowledge breadth) — cross-referenced against Chatbot Arena community votes to filter out cherry-picked provider claims.
Input and output costs verified directly against each provider's official API pricing page. Updated whenever a price change is detected. Value-per-dollar is weighted separately from raw benchmark rank.
Advertised context sizes are noted but scored against real-world usability — models that degrade significantly at large contexts are penalised even if the window is technically available.
Production signals matter more than lab scores. We weight Cursor and Windsurf defaults, HackerNews sentiment, developer surveys, and which models teams actually keep using after the honeymoon period.
One-off wins on cherry-picked benchmarks don't move our rankings. We favour models that stay dependable across repeated prompts, diverse task types, and long sessions without degrading.
Time-to-first-token and output throughput from Artificial Analysis speed benchmarks. Latency is categorised from Very fast to Deliberate — relevant when building interactive or high-throughput products.
Data sources
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
Best all-around pick for image-heavy and multimodal workflows.
Best for agentic automation and desktop control workflows.
Only frontier model that can control a desktop via API (click, type, navigate)
Strong at multi-step agentic tasks and autonomous workflows
Competitive coding performance with 74.9% SWE-bench score
Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 outperform it on pure coding benchmarks
Smaller context window (272K) vs Gemini 3.1 Pro (2M) for research
Newsletter
Useful if you care about ranking shifts, pricing changes, or a better recommendation appearing in this decision path.
No spam. Useful updates only. Affiliate disclosures always clearly labeled.
GPT-5.4 wins on more categories — coding, research, reasoning. GPT-4o is the better pick when multimodal tasks and image-adjacent workflows. The right choice depends on your specific use case.
GPT-5.4 is cheaper at $2.5/1M input and $15/1M output. GPT-4o costs $5/1M input and $15/1M output.
GPT-5.4 has the larger context window at 272K tokens vs GPT-4o's 128K. For large document analysis, GPT-5.4 is the stronger pick.
GPT-5.4 is better for coding with a score of 90 vs GPT-4o's 58. For the highest coding quality available, Claude Sonnet 4.6 (79.6% SWE-bench) or Opus 4.6 (80.8%) remain benchmarks.
GPT-4o is faster with a fast speed rating (score: 4) vs GPT-5.4's balanced rating (score: 3).
