| Signal | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) | Delta | Grok 4.20 |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 100 | -- | |
Benchmarks | 87 | +1 | |
Pricing | 5 | -92 | |
Context window size | 86 | -4 | |
Recency | 100 | -- | |
Output Capacity | 85 | +65 | |
| Overall Result | 2 wins | of 6 | 2 wins |
Score History
90
current score
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)
right now
88.3
current score
Anthropic
xAI
Grok 4.20 saves you $10250.00/month
That's $123000.00/year compared to Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 90 | 88 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Rank | #12 | #14 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Quality Rank | #12 | #14 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Adoption Rank | #12 | #14 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Parameters | -- | -- | -- |
| Context Window | 1000K | 2000K | Grok 4.20 |
| Pricing | $30.00/$150.00/M | $1.25/$2.50/M | -- |
| Signal Scores | |||
| Capabilities | 100 | 100 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Benchmarks | 87 | 86 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Pricing | 5 | 98 | Grok 4.20 |
| Context window size | 86 | 90 | Grok 4.20 |
| Recency | 100 | 100 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
| Output Capacity | 85 | 20 | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) |
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.
Scores 90/100 (rank #12), placing it in the top 96% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 88/100 (rank #14), placing it in the top 96% of all 290 models tracked.
With only a 2-point gap, these models are in the same performance tier. The practical difference in output quality is minimal - your choice should depend on pricing, latency requirements, and specific feature needs.
Grok 4.20 offers 98% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $56.25/month with Grok 4.20 vs $2700.00/month with Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) - a $2643.75 monthly difference.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. Grok 4.20 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (2000K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($2.50/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (90/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Image understanding & OCR
Supports vision input - can analyze screenshots, diagrams, photos, and scanned documents directly
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) and Grok 4.20 are extremely close in overall performance (only 1.7000000000000028 points apart). Your best choice depends entirely on which specific strengths matter most for your use case.
Best for Quality
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
Grok 4.20
98% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by Anthropic
| Capability | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) | Grok 4.20 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input) | ||
| Function Calling | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Mode | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Web Search | ||
| Image Output |
Anthropic
xAI
Grok 4.20 saves you $228.75/month
That's 98% cheaper than Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) | Grok 4.20 |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 1M | 2M |
| Max Output Tokens | 128,000 | -- |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Created | Apr 7, 2026 | Mar 31, 2026 |
Despite the $150/M output vs $6/M pricing gap, Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) offers a massive 128K max output tokens compared to Grok's unspecified limit, making it essential for generating large codebases or documentation in single passes. The 25x premium buys you predictable, guaranteed long-form output capacity that Grok 4.20 simply doesn't specify, which matters when you're generating entire microservices or comprehensive test suites.
The 2M vs 1M context difference translates to analyzing roughly 500K vs 250K lines of code in a single prompt, but most production codebases segment naturally into smaller modules where even 1M tokens is overkill. Grok's advantage shines in monolithic legacy system analysis or when processing entire documentation sets, though at $2/M input vs Claude's $30/M, you're paying 15x less to process those massive contexts.
The 12-point differential likely represents Grok 4.20's superior handling of complex algorithmic problems and multi-file refactoring tasks, as reflected in its #3 ranking versus Claude's #9 position among 316 coding models. However, both models share identical capabilities (Vision, Function Calling, JSON Mode, etc.), suggesting the performance gap stems from base model architecture rather than feature limitations.
At current prices, $10K buys you either 66.7M output tokens from Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast) or 1.67B tokens from Grok 4.20 - a 25x difference that could mean supporting 25 developers instead of 1. With Grok's superior 74/100 score and #3 ranking, you're getting both better performance and dramatically lower costs, making Claude's premium positioning difficult to justify unless you specifically need guaranteed 128K token outputs.
Claude's $150/M output pricing (25x Grok's $6/M) reflects Anthropic's strategy of monetizing their 128K max output guarantee and established enterprise relationships, while xAI appears to be buying market share with a loss-leader approach despite ranking #3 vs #9. The 2x context window advantage (2M vs 1M tokens) and 12-point score lead suggest xAI has superior technology but lacks Anthropic's enterprise sales infrastructure.