alt Hacker NewsI can't understand why people continue using opus 5.5. Significantly more expensive than other models that produce exact same results (for coding results only)
If you are using Opus 5.5 I'm curious if it is because 1) your workflow is just stuck on it, 2) you don't care about money because you ain't paying it or 3 )do you think you get better results.
If you 3 please let me know your experience and how you actually measure it, or if you just feel it is better.
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subscription on claude code — usually inside the weekly limit. opus 5.5 for me felt better than any other model. not exactly on coding but rather it feels more pro-active. beside just doing a task it often provides insights besides the scope of the task but adjacent. like: look the llm provider apis have different priority queues. also it deals w/ vague instructions quite good and takes initiative. Astra in comparison is very autistic and follows instructions to the letter and rarely provide insights if not asked. Opus 5.5 is enjoyment to work with.
What models should we be using? I have found it as good as Fable 5.1 for a lot of what I am doing at lower cost and decent speed. Where what I am doing it making reports, building small data pipelines, analyzing a large (millions of lines of code), code base.
Versus which models? Sonnet? Astra? Sol?
I haven't been able to run out of usage on the $100 plan with Opus 5.5. The model runs fast and gives me good results (I'm using it for coding). Prior to that I was on the OpenAI $200 plan; I jumped ship because I was burning through Astra usage in like 2 days.
I've played with some of the open models (GLM, DeepSeek Flash), but none of them have matched the results I get with Opus or Astra or (and a big jump down here) Sol.