Claude Fable 5.1 vs Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Anthropic · US  |  Tencent · China · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Claude Fable 5.1 for terminal-bench-science agentic research (52.6%, more than double fable 5's 24.7%) or cursorbench 3.2 agentic coding (73.4%). Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Choose Hunyuan Hy4 Preview if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Claude Fable 5.1 if you want a managed API.

Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic, US) and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent, China) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. Claude Fable 5.1 is anthropic's September 1, 2026 update to its Fable line for coding and knowledge work, keeping the 1M-token context of Fable 5 while cutting cache-read costs and roughly doubling agentic-research benchmark scores. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. They diverge most on price and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude Fable 5.1Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
ProviderAnthropic (US) Tencent (China)
ReleasedSeptember 1, 2026 August 28, 2026
Context window1M tokens (~1,500 pages) 1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$10/$50 per 1M tokens $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, image text
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Terminal-Bench-Science agentic research (52.6%, more than double Fable 5's 24.7%)

Claude Fable 5.1

Anthropic's September 1, 2026 update to its Fable line for coding and knowledge work, keeping the 1M-token context of Fable 5 while cutting cache-read costs and roughly doubling agentic-research benchmark scores — and it is the newer of the two.

CursorBench 3.2 agentic coding (73.4%)

Claude Fable 5.1

Claude Fable 5.1 lists cursorBench 3.2 agentic coding (73.4%) among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.

Cache-read pricing cut to a quarter of other Claude models

Claude Fable 5.1

Claude Fable 5.1 lists cache-read pricing cut to a quarter of other Claude models among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.

GPQA Diamond (92.3)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it runs cheaper at $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens.

Terminal-Bench (85.4)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Claude Fable 5.1 is comparatively weak here — anthropic has not published an official SWE-bench Verified score for this model

SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and its weights are open while Claude Fable 5.1 is API-only.

Lowest cost at scale

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens it undercuts Claude Fable 5.1, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Claude Fable 5.1 is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is terminal-bench-science agentic research (52.6%, more than double fable 5's 24.7%)

Claude Fable 5.1

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

Claude Fable 5.1 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Origin (US vs China) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.

Claude Fable 5.1: where it fits

Anthropic's September 1, 2026 update to its Fable line for coding and knowledge work, keeping the 1M-token context of Fable 5 while cutting cache-read costs and roughly doubling agentic-research benchmark scores. Released September 1, 2026 by Anthropic, it is built for terminal-Bench-Science agentic research (52.6%, more than double Fable 5's 24.7%), cursorBench 3.2 agentic coding (73.4%), cache-read pricing cut to a quarter of other Claude models, and long, multistep, document-heavy professional work with 1M-token context.

Its trade-offs are real: anthropic has not published an official SWE-bench Verified score for this model, restricted Mythos 5.1 variant outscores it on some benchmarks due to lighter safeguards (Terminal-Bench 4.0: 60.9% vs 55.8%), and closed weights, no self-hosting option. At $10 in / $50 out per million tokens, it sits in the premium price band.

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).

Its trade-offs: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Claude Fable 5.1 gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both Claude Fable 5.1 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Fable 5.1 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Claude Fable 5.1 leans toward terminal-bench-science agentic research (52.6%, more than double fable 5's 24.7%) while Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.1 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Claude Fable 5.1 is API-metered at $10/$50 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both advertise 1M tokens (~1,500 pages). Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.

Can I use both Claude Fable 5.1 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Claude Fable 5.1, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, Claude Fable 5.1 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?

Claude Fable 5.1 — released September 1, 2026, about 4 days after Hunyuan Hy4 Preview.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.