Claude Haiku 4.5 vs ERNIE 5.0

Anthropic · US  |  Baidu · China · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Claude Haiku 4.5 for fastest claude model or near-frontier coding for its tier — 73.3% on swe-bench verified. Pick ERNIE 5.0 for baidu's flagship omni-modal model — text, image and video understanding or particularly strong on chinese-language reasoning tasks. On a tight budget at scale, ERNIE 5.0 is the value pick.

Claude Haiku 4.5 (Anthropic, US) and ERNIE 5.0 (Baidu, 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 Haiku 4.5 is anthropic's fastest, most compact model — built for speed and volume. ERNIE 5.0 is baidu's flagship omni-modal ERNIE model — strong Chinese-language and multimodal reasoning at low cost, though it trails the Western frontier on independent benchmarks. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude Haiku 4.5ERNIE 5.0
ProviderAnthropic (US) Baidu (China)
ReleasedOctober 15, 2025 January 22, 2026
Context window200K (~300 pages) 128K (~192 pages)
Price (in/out)$1/$5 per 1M tokens $0.6/$2.1 per 1M tokens
Open weight?No — API only No — API only
Modalitiestext, image, code text, image, video, code
SWE-Bench Verified73.3% Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Fastest Claude model

Claude Haiku 4.5

Anthropic's fastest, most compact model — built for speed and volume — and it carries the larger 200K context.

Near-frontier coding for its tier — 73.3% on SWE-Bench Verified

Claude Haiku 4.5

ERNIE 5.0 is comparatively weak here — trails the Western frontier on aggregate independent tests (AA Intelligence Index ~22 for the tracked Thinking Preview)

Low-latency, high-volume API calls

Claude Haiku 4.5

Claude Haiku 4.5 lists low-latency, high-volume API calls among its strengths; ERNIE 5.0 does not.

Baidu's flagship omni-modal model — text, image and video understanding

ERNIE 5.0

Baidu's flagship omni-modal ERNIE model — strong Chinese-language and multimodal reasoning at low cost, though it trails the Western frontier on independent benchmarks — and it runs cheaper at $0.6/$2.1 per 1M tokens.

Particularly strong on Chinese-language reasoning tasks

ERNIE 5.0

Claude Haiku 4.5 is comparatively weak here — not for deep reasoning

Competitive API pricing (around $0.60/$2.10 per million tokens)

ERNIE 5.0

Baidu's flagship omni-modal ERNIE model — strong Chinese-language and multimodal reasoning at low cost, though it trails the Western frontier on independent benchmarks — and it is the newer of the two.

Lowest cost at scale

ERNIE 5.0

At $0.6/$2.1 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

Claude Haiku 4.5

Its 200K window is about 1.6× larger than ERNIE 5.0's 128K, fitting roughly 300 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

ERNIE 5.0

At $0.6/$2.1 per 1M tokens it undercuts Claude Haiku 4.5, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Claude Haiku 4.5

Larger 200K window fits more in one prompt.

Anyone whose priority is fastest claude model

Claude Haiku 4.5

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is baidu's flagship omni-modal model — text, image and video understanding

ERNIE 5.0

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

Claude Haiku 4.5 or ERNIE 5.0

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

Claude Haiku 4.5: where it fits

Anthropic's fastest, most compact model — built for speed and volume. Released October 15, 2025 by Anthropic, it is built for fastest Claude model, near-frontier coding for its tier — 73.3% on SWE-Bench Verified, low-latency, high-volume API calls, and cheapest Claude tier at $1/$5.

Its trade-offs are real: smallest context in the family (200K), and not for deep reasoning. At $1 in / $5 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

ERNIE 5.0: where it fits

Baidu's flagship omni-modal ERNIE model — strong Chinese-language and multimodal reasoning at low cost, though it trails the Western frontier on independent benchmarks. Released January 22, 2026 by Baidu, it is built for baidu's flagship omni-modal model — text, image and video understanding, particularly strong on Chinese-language reasoning tasks, competitive API pricing (around $0.60/$2.10 per million tokens), and backed by a major lab with deep China-market integration.

Its trade-offs: trails the Western frontier on aggregate independent tests (AA Intelligence Index ~22 for the tracked Thinking Preview), parameter and architecture details are vendor-stated and opaque, closed weights on a China-hosted API, and 128K context is smaller than 1M-token rivals. At $0.6 in / $2.1 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

This is less "which is smarter" and more "which ecosystem fits." Claude Haiku 4.5 (US) and ERNIE 5.0 (China) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. ERNIE 5.0 is the cheaper option, which matters at volume. The pragmatic move is to run one real task through both and judge the outputs against your own constraints — including where your data is allowed to be processed.

Want both Claude Haiku 4.5 and ERNIE 5.0 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 Haiku 4.5 or ERNIE 5.0 better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for ERNIE 5.0, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Claude Haiku 4.5 leans toward fastest claude model while ERNIE 5.0 leans toward baidu's flagship omni-modal model — text, image and video understanding, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Claude Haiku 4.5 or ERNIE 5.0?

ERNIE 5.0 is cheaper — $1/$5 per 1M tokens vs $0.6/$2.1 per 1M tokens, roughly 1.7× apart on input.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Haiku 4.5 — 200K vs 128K, about 1.6× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both Claude Haiku 4.5 and ERNIE 5.0 together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Claude Haiku 4.5, ERNIE 5.0 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 Haiku 4.5 or ERNIE 5.0?

ERNIE 5.0 — released January 22, 2026, about 3 months after Claude Haiku 4.5.

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.