GuideFebruary 19, 2026
Sonnet 5 vs Opus 4.6: Anthropic's Own Models Compete - Which to Choose?
Guide to choosing between Claude Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.6 for your use case.
Anthropic's Internal Competition
When does the 10x price premium for Opus 4.6 make sense?
Quick Comparison
| Factor | Sonnet 5 | Opus 4.6 |
| SWE-bench | 80.9% | 82.1% |
| Context | 500K | 200K |
| Price | $9/M | $90/M |
Recommendations
Choose Sonnet 5: Cost-sensitive, speed-critical, large context needs Choose Opus 4.6: Maximum quality, complex reasoning, agent reliability criticalMost teams benefit from using both strategically.