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Claude Opus 4.8 vs SWE-2

Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2 are closely matched at 49.6 and 47.9 on the LLM Stats Score.

Anthropic · Cognition · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 49.6 and 47.9.

In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, SWE-2 wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Opus 4.8

  • you want predictable pricing at $5.00/M input and $25.00/M output

Choose SWE-2

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 3 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Opus 4.8
Anthropic
SWE-2
Cognition
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
49.6
#22
47.9
#34
Reasoning
49.5
#16
45.5
#37
Coding
39.1
#22
38.7
#26
Agents
33.8
#37
35.6
#27
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 3
3 of 3
Input price
$5.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$25.00 / M
— / M
Context window
1,000,000
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Claude Opus 4.8
SWE-2
Tool use
28.0#27
26.2#38
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

28 reported for Claude Opus 4.8 · 4 for SWE-2

3 shared

Claude Opus 4.8 outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while SWE-2 is better at 3 benchmarks (DeepSWE 1.1, FrontierCode 1.1, Terminal-Bench 4.0).

SWE-2 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Nov 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Claude Opus 4.8 specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.8
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Cognition
SWE-2
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Fri Nov 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Opus 4.8 supports multimodal inputs, whereas SWE-2 does not.

Claude Opus 4.8 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 4.8

Text
Images
Audio
Video

SWE-2

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under proprietary licenses.

Both models have usage restrictions defined by their respective organizations.

Claude Opus 4.8

Proprietary

Closed source

SWE-2

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 4.8 was released on 2026-05-28, while SWE-2 was released on 2026-09-10.

SWE-2 is 4 months newer than Claude Opus 4.8.

Claude Opus 4.8

May 28, 2026

5 months ago

SWE-2

Sep 10, 2026

1 months ago

3mo newer

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?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Opus 4.8
✓ Preferred
SWE-2
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 4.8 vs SWE-2.

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or SWE-2?

Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2 are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 49.6 and 47.9. Claude Opus 4.8 is made by Anthropic and SWE-2 is made by Cognition. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Opus 4.8 compare to SWE-2 in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores GPQA: 93.6%, DeepSearchQA: 93.1%, CharXiv-R: 89.9%, SWE-Bench Verified: 88.6%, ScreenSpot Pro: 87.9%. SWE-2 scores Terminal-Bench 2.1: 92.8%, DeepSWE 1.1: 73.0%, FrontierCode 1.1: 50.0%, Terminal-Bench 4.0: 27.3%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2?

Claude Opus 4.8 supports 1.0M tokens and SWE-2 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 4.8 and SWE-2?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (49.6 vs 47.9), multimodal support (yes vs no). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 4.8 and SWE-2?

Claude Opus 4.8 is developed by Anthropic and SWE-2 is developed by Cognition.

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