Head to head · October 2026

Claude Opus 5.5 vs GPT-6 Luna

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on the Models at Work leaderboard (91 vs 66 out of 100). GPT-6 Luna is about 40× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.20 vs $8). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 58 to 38.

Updated Oct 10, 2026 · every number links to who measured it
Claude Opus 5.5 · AnthropicGPT-6 Luna · OpenAI
Leaderboard rank#1#10
Score (0–100)9166
TierFrontierFast and cheap
Price per 1M tokens$4 in · $20 out$0.10 in · $0.50 out
Context window1M1M
Open weightsNoNo
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index5838
Arena text score1507—
Humanity's Last Exam, Diamond (Scale)55.0—
Epoch Capabilities Index167—
Best forAgentic coding, Long-running agents, Enterprise knowledge workChatGPT Free and Go tier, Simple extraction, Cost floors

Choose Claude Opus 5.5 if…

  • you need agentic coding
  • you need long-running agents
  • you need enterprise knowledge work

The model people actually ship agents on: top of the independent index, a price that does not need a budget meeting, and a community that complains mainly about how much it has to be used.

Caveats: Arena puts Gemini 4 Argon ahead on chat preference; the gap is inside two scores' error bars.

Choose GPT-6 Luna if…

  • you need chatgpt free and go tier
  • you need simple extraction
  • you need cost floors

OpenAI's ten-cent model: the one every ChatGPT Free user now has, and the one Haiku users keep comparing themselves to.

What practitioners say

Claude Opus 5.5: The launch thread was the biggest Claude thread of the year on Hacker News, a port of the TypeScript compiler to Rust credited the model with a working build in ten hours, and a Vals AI materials-discovery run used it for agentic simulation. A 'has it been nerfed yet' tracker is the most-upvoted scepticism.

Questions people ask

Which is better, Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Luna?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on the Models at Work leaderboard (91 vs 66 out of 100). GPT-6 Luna is about 40× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.20 vs $8). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 58 to 38.

When should I choose Claude Opus 5.5 over GPT-6 Luna?

Choose Claude Opus 5.5 for agentic coding, long-running agents, enterprise knowledge work. The model people actually ship agents on: top of the independent index, a price that does not need a budget meeting, and a community that complains mainly about how much it has to be used.

When should I choose GPT-6 Luna over Claude Opus 5.5?

Choose GPT-6 Luna for chatgpt free and go tier, simple extraction, cost floors. OpenAI's ten-cent model: the one every ChatGPT Free user now has, and the one Haiku users keep comparing themselves to.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6 Luna?

Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens on Anthropic's list price (Claude pricing, read Oct 10, 2026). GPT-6 Luna costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens on OpenAI's list price (OpenAI API pricing, read Oct 10, 2026).

Scores come from the Models at Work leaderboard: Score is 0 to 100: 50% independent evals normalised within this table, 20% price-performance, 15% practitioner sentiment from Signals and community threads, 15% operational fit (context, speed, availability, open weights). Models within three points are a tie in practice. Vendor-published figures are labelled as such and never counted as independent. Prices are vendor list prices where published; blended figures assume three input tokens per output token.