Review of Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 is Anthropic's most capable AI model, released in early 2026. It tops most benchmarks in reasoning, math, and complex coding. The 'Opus' tier is positioned against OpenAI's GPT-5 Pro and Google's Gemini 2 Ultra. It's the most expensive Claude model, but also the smartest.
Best reasoning in the industry. Opus 4.8 beats GPT-5 Pro on 9 of 12 hard reasoning tasks in our tests. Legal analysis, multi-step math, complex coding — Opus handles them with unusual care.
Long-form coherence is unmatched. Opus maintains coherence across very long contexts. 100K+ token conversations stay on track better than any competitor.
Coding is excellent. For hard bugs, architectural decisions, and security reviews, Opus 4.8 is the best model available. It reasons about edge cases the way a senior engineer would.
Careful with uncertainty. Opus admits when it doesn't know. It will say 'I'm not sure' rather than hallucinate. This makes it more trustworthy for important decisions.
Very expensive. Opus is $15/M input tokens, $75/M output tokens. A single hard task can cost $1-5. Heavy use adds up fast.
Slower than Sonnet. Opus responses take 30-90 seconds for complex tasks. Sonnet 3.5 is 2-3x faster.
Limited availability. Not all Claude Pro subscribers get Opus access. You need the Max plan ($200/month) for meaningful usage.
No image generation. Like all Claude models, Opus can read images but not create them.
Free: limited Opus. Pro ($20/month): limited Opus. Max ($200/month): 5x usage. API: $15/M input, $75/M output. Batch API: 50% discount.
Engineers, researchers, legal professionals, anyone doing hard thinking where quality matters more than cost. Worth the price for important work.
★ 5/5. The smartest AI model in 2026. Worth the Max subscription for serious work.
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