Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs LongCat 2.0
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 5 (Medium) scores 25.7 points higher (44.8 vs 19.1) but costs 5.0× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $545; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 19.1, and LongCat 2.0 when 19.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | LongCat 2.0 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 19.1 | −57.4% LongCat 2.0 is 57.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $544.74 | −80.1% LongCat 2.0 is 80.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 35.54s | +170.5% LongCat 2.0 is 170.5% slower |
| 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 5 (Medium): 57.4% less intelligence, 80.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 170.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- 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 5 (Medium)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-5-medium/longcat-2-0 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/longcat-2-0?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill