Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Muse Ember (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Muse Ember (Xhigh) by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-10.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 17.7 points higher (51.8 vs 34.1) but costs 28× as much to run the benchmark ($2716 vs $95.7; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 34.1, and Muse Ember (Xhigh) when 34.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Muse Ember (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.8 | 34.1 | −34.2% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 34.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,715.98 | $95.73 | −96.5% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 96.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 53.19s | 9.48s | −82.2% Muse Ember (Xhigh) is 82.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.10 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Muse Ember (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 34.2% less intelligence, 96.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 82.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
- Muse Ember (Xhigh) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Muse Ember (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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