Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 48.6 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) costs 5.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 32 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.6

Rank #3 Confirmed

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) xAI

48.6

Rank #54 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 32 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 10 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 0 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 91.8 to 48.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 100% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 14% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
  • Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is cheaper at $1.25 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5 and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) specifications
Claude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
ProviderAnthropicxAI
Noometry Index68.648.6
Released2026-09-222026-02-17
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M1M
Max output128K30K
Input $ / M tokens$4$1.25
Output $ / M tokens$20$2.50
Results tracked4446

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena WebDev18131375
LMArena Coding15471459
ALE-Bench2,1471,150
FrontierCode54.6%—
CursorBench57.8%—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
SciCode66.9%—
WeirdML—52.3%
MirrorCode77.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
Vending-Bench 29,2354,663
Terminal-Bench—57.3%
APEX-Agents73.5%—
τ²-bench Banking—18%
GDP.pdf30.6%—
LMArena Search—1189

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
ARC-AGI-293.3%65.1%
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%85.4%
ARC-AGI-198.5%89.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts15351451
DTBench98.9%90.1%
LMCA68.2%38.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index167.33151.98
Kagi LLM Benchmark—75%
CritPt31.7%—
Chess Puzzles—24%
Thematic Generalization—63.8%
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
ForecastBench—61.4

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%44.9%
FrontierMath Tier 495%17.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%92.2%
ProofBench100%14%
LMArena Math15061455
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
GPQA Diamond90.6%89.3%
SimpleQA Verified72.2%30.2%
LMArena Expert15471439

Multimodal Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Vision13211263
Blueprint-Bench 251.2%0%
Furniture Assembly83.3%—
LMArena Document—1416

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Non-English15071441
LMArena Chinese15881481
LMArena French15141476
LMArena Russian15201458
LMArena Spanish15071443
LMArena German—1465
LMArena Japanese—1449
LMArena Korean—1417

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Instruction Following15371420

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Longer Query15321437
CL-bench—22.2%
CL-bench Life—11.9%

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Text15151451
LMArena Creative Writing15331438
EQ-Bench Creative Writing20501574
LMArena Multi-Turn14991456

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 48.6 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) costs 5.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is cheaper. It lists at $1.25 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 42.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

32 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.

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