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LLMS List

Pick the right LLM in minutes with clear model picks and a fast test plan.

Your Value, Fast

  • Start with two high-impact models
  • Cut noise with direct trade-offs
  • Ship a benchmark this week

Test These First Right Now

GPT-6 Astra Claude Opus 5.5 October 2026

Latest Model Radar

GPT-6 Astra

Newest frontier — 99.9% ARC-AGI 3, 100% ExploitBench

Claude Opus 5.5

Current Opus — 1M context, $4/$20 per MTok, adaptive thinking

Claude Fable 5.1

Creative/narrative — 52.6% on Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1

Gemini 3.8 Flash

Now stable — thinking levels + native audio

Mistral Large 4

Oct 6 — open-weight 1.05T MoE, 1M context, $1.36/$4.18

Top Recommendation: Start With These Two

If you only test two models this week: GPT-6 Astra for newest frontier quality (99.9% ARC-AGI 3, 100% ExploitBench), and Claude Opus 5.5 for 1M context, adaptive thinking and state-of-the-art agentic reasoning at $4/$20 per MTok.

GPT-6 Astra

Newest frontier model with 99.9% on ARC-AGI 3, 100% on ExploitBench, and 256K–512K long context. Best for cutting-edge AI research and production frontiers.

Claude Opus 5.5

Best for complex agentic workflows, state-of-the-art reasoning, and autonomous long-running tasks with 1M context and 128K output.

October 2026 Snapshot

What Winning Teams Prioritize

2

primary models to benchmark first

GPT-6 Astra + Claude Opus 5.5 first.

3

decision factors that dominate outcomes

Quality, cost, control.

7

days to run a serious evaluation cycle

Ship a real benchmark in one week.

Executive Summaries

Choose Your Testing Track

01

Frontier Track

GPT-6 Astra or Claude Opus 5.5 for top-end quality on the hardest agentic, vision, and reasoning tasks.

See deployment recommendations

Visual Strategy Guide

How Teams Actually Deploy Models

Model Routing Flow

User Prompt
Task Router
Fast Lane
Gemini 3.8 Flash / GPT-6 Luna
Reasoning Lane
GPT-6 Astra / Claude Opus 5.5
Production Output

Strategy Usage by Workload

Support Automation

Gemma/Scout-heavy

Technical Analysis

Frontier-heavy

Product Assistants

Hybrid split

Quick Picks: Newest Models to Start With

Latest refresh (October 13, 2026): Claude Opus 5.5 (Sep 22), Sonnet 5.5 (Sep 28) and Haiku 5.5 (Oct 7); GPT-6 Sol/Luna (Sep 22) and GPT-6.1 Sol (Sep 29); Mistral Large 4 (Oct 6, open weights); Grok 4.7 (Sep 21); Gemini 4 Argon announced Sep 30 (trusted cyber defenders only for now). Still relevant from earlier: Gemini 3.8 Flash, Llama 4.1, DeepSeek V4.1-DSpark (920B), Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B, Kimi K3 (2.8T) and GLM-5.3 (753B).

Best Overall (Quality-First)

Claude Opus 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol for top-end quality, 1M+ context, and complex reasoning.

Best Fast/Low Cost Pair

Use GPT-6 Luna, Claude Haiku 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5, or Gemini 3.8 Flash for balanced speed and cost.

Best Open-Weight Track

Start with Mistral Large 4, Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B, Kimi K3 and Llama 4.1, then test GLM-5.3 and MiMo-V2.6 for coding.

Best for Coding Teams

Pair Claude Opus 5.5 with Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Devstral 2 for speed and cost balance.

What You Will Find Here

Honest Model Breakdowns

Plain-English strengths and weaknesses across major model families.

System-Size Recommendations

Clear architecture picks for solo projects, SaaS, and enterprise.

Decision Frameworks

Fast comparison for reasoning, coding, cost, latency, and control.

Most Popular LLM Families

OpenAI GPT Series

Strong default quality and tooling, typically at premium pricing.

Anthropic Claude Series

Excellent long-context writing for documentation and policy work.

Google Gemini Series

Strong multimodal performance and tight Google cloud integration.

Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek

Popular open/open-weight options for self-hosting and cost control.

Recent Industry Developments (September–October 2026)

Claude 5.5 Family Rolls Out

Anthropic followed Fable 5.1 (Sep 1) with Claude Opus 5.5 (Sep 22, $4/$20 per MTok), Sonnet 5.5 (Sep 28, $2/$10) and Haiku 5.5 (Oct 7, from $0.10/$0.50), all with 1M context. Thinking is always adaptive on Opus 5.5, with effort levels as the main control. Mythos 5.1 stays gated to trusted-access programs.

GPT-6 Sol, Luna and GPT-6.1 Sol

OpenAI added cheaper GPT-6 tiers on Sep 22: Sol ($2/$10 per MTok, 1.05M context) and Luna ($0.10/$0.50), followed by GPT-6.1 Sol on Sep 29 for coding, computer use and reasoning. GPT-6 Astra remains the top tier.

Gemini 4 Argon Announced

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on Sep 30 as its newest frontier model. Access is limited to trusted cyber defenders through the Fairwind Program for now; no public pricing or general availability date yet. Gemini 3.8 Flash remains the production choice.

Llama 4.1 Improves Multilingual

Meta's August update brings optimized MoE architecture with significantly improved multilingual support including Nordic languages. Better for global deployments.

Open Models Continue Scaling

DeepSeek V4.1-DSpark (920B) improves agent capabilities. Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B is the first open Qwen-Max-class model (2.4T/95B). Kimi K3 (2.8T) is the world's first open 3T-class model. GLM-5.3 leads on coding and cybersecurity.

Start Here

Fast default: one top closed model for quality plus one low-cost model for volume.

Read the full guidance on Model Recommendations.