Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs gpt-oss-20b

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 32.5 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-20b costs 278× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

gpt-oss-20b OpenAI

32.5

Rank #255 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 9 categories and gpt-oss-20b in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 64.7 to 19.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is LMCA: 57.5% for Claude Opus 4.8 and 14.5% for gpt-oss-20b.
  • gpt-oss-20b is cheaper at $0.018 / $0.09 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • gpt-oss-20b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and gpt-oss-20b specifications
Claude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
ProviderAnthropicOpenAI
Noometry Index60.732.5
Released2026-05-282025-08-05
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output128K16K
Input $ / M tokens$5$0.018
Output $ / M tokens$25$0.09
Results tracked6534

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), gpt-oss-20b: 37.6 (#192)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
SciCode53.5%34.4%
WeirdML82.9%40.9%
LMArena Coding14901306
ALE-Bench1,564566.05
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
LMArena WebDev1556—
GSO47.1%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), gpt-oss-20b: 9.3 (#154)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
Terminal-Bench—3.4%
APEX-Agents48.9%—
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—
Vending-Bench 25,787—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), gpt-oss-20b: 19.3 (#261)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%53.2%
CritPt20.9%1.4%
Chess Puzzles34%4%
LMArena Hard Prompts14821274
DTBench94.9%68%
LMCA57.5%14.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index158.21137.82
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.4 (#13), gpt-oss-20b: 39.4 (#103)

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), gpt-oss-20b: 34.6 (#195)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
GPQA Diamond91%60.8%
LMArena Expert15021258
SimpleQA Verified53%—
MMLU-Pro—74%
GPQA (HELM)—59.4%

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), gpt-oss-20b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
LMArena Vision1294—
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), gpt-oss-20b: 42.2 (#197)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
LMArena Non-English14501268
LMArena Chinese15071314
LMArena German14721255
LMArena Japanese14401244
LMArena Korean14321236
LMArena Russian14741278
LMArena Spanish14661267
LMArena French1481—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), gpt-oss-20b: 61.8 (#240)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
LMArena Instruction Following14761236
IFEval—73.2%

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), gpt-oss-20b: 37.9 (#209)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
LMArena Longer Query14831250

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), gpt-oss-20b: 35.5 (#265)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8gpt-oss-20b
LMArena Text14611287
LMArena Creative Writing14541201
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1840666
LMArena Multi-Turn14761268
WildBench—73.7%
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than gpt-oss-20b?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 32.5 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-20b costs 278× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or gpt-oss-20b?

gpt-oss-20b is cheaper. It lists at $0.018 per million input tokens and $0.09 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or gpt-oss-20b better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 37.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and gpt-oss-20b share?

28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and gpt-oss-20b has 34.

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