Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs LongCat 2.0
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or LongCat 2.0 by LongCat? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 22.7 points higher (41.8 vs 19.1) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $545; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 19.1, and LongCat 2.0 when 19.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | LongCat 2.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 19.1 | −54.3% LongCat 2.0 is 54.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $544.74 | −92.1% LongCat 2.0 is 92.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 35.54s | −3.7% LongCat 2.0 is 3.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.75 / $2.95 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
LongCat 2.0 vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 54.3% less intelligence, 92.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- LongCat 2.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)LongCat 2.0Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/longcat-2-0 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/longcat-2-0?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill