2026 has seen a wave of new flagship models. Claude Opus 4.7 now leads on SWE-Bench Pro coding at 64.3%. GPT-5.5 brought stronger agentic performance to the OpenAI lineup. Llama 4 (Scout and Maverick) closed the gap on closed models. Grok 4 entered as xAI's most capable release. Here's how every 2026 model stacks up.
The shortest way to see the safest default, the lower-cost option, and the specialist pick before you read deeper.
Claude Opus 4.7 is the safest overall answer here when you want the strongest default instead of the lowest list price.
Switch the scoring lens to see whether the top answer changes when you care more about cost, speed, or long-document work.
Anthropic / Premium / Apr 26, 2026
Best premium model for coding agents and high-stakes engineering work.
Ranks models by the broadest mix of coding, writing, research, and long-context usefulness.
You need cheaper high-volume throughput, image generation, or a workflow that must stay inside OpenAI tooling.
The fastest way to see where the recommendation shifts when your priority changes.
64.3% on SWE-Bench Pro, ahead of GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.4 in current public comparisons
1M context window for large codebases and document-heavy workflows
Strong vision and agentic consistency improvements over Opus 4.6
Premium pricing is expensive for high-volume workloads
GPT-5.5 has stronger OpenAI ecosystem fit and faster Codex availability for some teams
UseRightAI recommendations are based on practical decision factors people actually feel in day-to-day use.
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Major 2026 releases include Claude Opus 4.7 (Anthropic), GPT-5.5 (OpenAI), Llama 4 Scout and Maverick (Meta), Grok 4 (xAI), and Gemini 3.1 Pro (Google). Mistral Small 3.1 and Codestral were also updated significantly.
Claude Opus 4.7 leads all 2026 models on SWE-Bench Pro at 64.3%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 (79.6% classic SWE-Bench) is the best value pick for coding at $3/1M input.
For coding and writing, Claude Opus 4.7 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 lead in 2026. GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.4 are stronger for OpenAI-native agentic workflows and computer-use tasks. The best choice depends on your specific use case.
Meta: Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is the lower-cost option to start with when you still need useful output at scale.
Llama 4 Maverick is the better pick when response speed matters more than maximum reasoning depth.
Claude Opus 4.7 leads on autonomous coding benchmarks with a 64.3% SWE-Bench Pro score.
GPT-5.5 is OpenAI's strongest 2026 model for Codex workflows and Terminal-Bench (82.7%) agentic tasks.
Llama 4 Maverick is the biggest open-weight leap of 2026 — competitive with GPT-5.4 on general tasks.
Choose Claude Opus 4.7 when you need the highest-quality coding, analysis, or reasoning in 2026.
Choose GPT-5.5 when your stack is OpenAI-native and you want the latest Codex-capable model.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick for the best open-weight quality in 2026 without API costs.
