Model Comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Phi-3.5-MoE-instructWhich is better in 2026?

Claude Opus 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Claude Opus 4.6 vs Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct — which is better?

Claude Opus 4.6 (by Anthropic) and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct (by Microsoft) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Claude Opus 4.6 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMMLU), while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Claude Opus 4.6 if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 2 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Feb 2026

Choose Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Want to compare interactively?Try the playground

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

2 benchmarks

Claude Opus 4.6 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMMLU), while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sun Jun 07 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude Opus 4.6 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Claude Opus 4.6 specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.6
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sun Jun 07 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Claude Opus 4.6 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct does not.

Claude Opus 4.6 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Opus 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct uses MIT.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude Opus 4.6

Proprietary

Closed source

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 4.6 was released on 2026-02-05, while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct was released on 2024-08-23.

Claude Opus 4.6 is 18 months newer than Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct.

Claude Opus 4.6

Feb 5, 2026

4 months ago

1.5yr newer
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Aug 23, 2024

1.8 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Anthropic
Larger context window (1,000,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (91.3% vs 36.8%)
Higher MMMLU score (91.1% vs 69.9%)
Microsoft
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.6
Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 4.6 vs Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct.

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Claude Opus 4.6 is made by Anthropic and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is made by Microsoft. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Claude Opus 4.6 compare to Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4.6 scores Vending-Bench 2: 100.0%, AIME 2025: 99.8%, Tau2 Telecom: 99.3%, Graphwalks parents >128k: 95.4%, MRCR v2 (8-needle): 93.0%. Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct scores ARC-C: 91.0%, OpenBookQA: 89.6%, GSM8k: 88.7%, PIQA: 88.6%, RULER: 87.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 4.6 and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 supports 1.0M tokens and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Opus 4.6 and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 4.6 and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 is developed by Anthropic and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is developed by Microsoft.

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