Claude Opus 5 vs Hunyuan Hy3

Anthropic · US  |  Tencent · China · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Claude Opus 5 for frontier reasoning at lower cost per task — anthropic reports it more than doubling opus 4.8 on frontier-bench v0.1 or agentic coding — within 0.5% of fable 5's peak cursorbench 3.2 score at half the cost per task (anthropic's figures). Pick Hunyuan Hy3 for frontier-level reported reasoning and science (gpqa diamond 90.4) at low active-parameter cost or runs a 295b model at the cost of a 21b — only 21b parameters active per token. Choose Hunyuan Hy3 if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Claude Opus 5 if you want a managed API.

Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic, US) and Hunyuan Hy3 (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 Opus 5 is anthropic's July 2026 flagship at $5/$25 with a 1M window and an effort dial — near-frontier quality pitched on cost per task, not raw peak. Hunyuan Hy3 is a 295B Apache-2.0 open MoE that reaches frontier reasoning quality while running at roughly 21B active-parameter cost. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude Opus 5Hunyuan Hy3
ProviderAnthropic (US) Tencent (China)
ReleasedJuly 24, 2026 July 6, 2026
Context window1M (~1,500 pages) 256K (~384 pages)
Price (in/out)$5/$25 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, image, code text, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Frontier reasoning at lower cost per task — Anthropic reports it more than doubling Opus 4.8 on Frontier-Bench v0.1

Claude Opus 5

Hunyuan Hy3 is comparatively weak here — benchmarks are largely self-reported, and the ultra-low hosted pricing is a limited promotion

Agentic coding — within 0.5% of Fable 5's peak CursorBench 3.2 score at half the cost per task (Anthropic's figures)

Claude Opus 5

Anthropic's July 2026 flagship at $5/$25 with a 1M window and an effort dial — near-frontier quality pitched on cost per task, not raw peak — and it carries the larger 1M context.

Computer use — surpasses Fable 5's best OSWorld 2.0 result at just over a third of the cost

Claude Opus 5

Anthropic's July 2026 flagship at $5/$25 with a 1M window and an effort dial — near-frontier quality pitched on cost per task, not raw peak — and it is the newer of the two.

Frontier-level reported reasoning and science (GPQA Diamond 90.4) at low active-parameter cost

Hunyuan Hy3

Claude Opus 5 is comparatively weak here — all launch benchmarks are Anthropic-reported and not yet independently reproduced

Runs a 295B model at the cost of a 21B — only 21B parameters active per token

Hunyuan Hy3

A 295B Apache-2.0 open MoE that reaches frontier reasoning quality while running at roughly 21B active-parameter cost — and its weights are open while Claude Opus 5 is API-only.

Clean, unrestricted Apache-2.0 license with no geographic carve-out

Hunyuan Hy3

Hunyuan Hy3 lists clean, unrestricted Apache-2.0 license with no geographic carve-out among its strengths; Claude Opus 5 does not.

Lowest cost at scale

Hunyuan Hy3

Its weights are open, so at volume you pay for your own hardware instead of Claude Opus 5's $5/$25 per 1M tokens.

Largest single-prompt input

Claude Opus 5

Its 1M window is about 3.9× larger than Hunyuan Hy3's 256K, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Hunyuan Hy3

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Claude Opus 5, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Claude Opus 5

Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Hunyuan Hy3

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Claude Opus 5 is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is frontier reasoning at lower cost per task — anthropic reports it more than doubling opus 4.8 on frontier-bench v0.1

Claude Opus 5

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is frontier-level reported reasoning and science (gpqa diamond 90.4) at low active-parameter cost

Hunyuan Hy3

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

Claude Opus 5 or Hunyuan Hy3

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

Claude Opus 5: where it fits

Anthropic's July 2026 flagship at $5/$25 with a 1M window and an effort dial — near-frontier quality pitched on cost per task, not raw peak. Released July 24, 2026 by Anthropic, it is built for frontier reasoning at lower cost per task — Anthropic reports it more than doubling Opus 4.8 on Frontier-Bench v0.1, agentic coding — within 0.5% of Fable 5's peak CursorBench 3.2 score at half the cost per task (Anthropic's figures), computer use — surpasses Fable 5's best OSWorld 2.0 result at just over a third of the cost, and a native effort setting (low, medium, high, xhigh, max) that trades token cost against capability on a single model.

Its trade-offs are real: behind Mythos 5 on cybersecurity exploitation and biology research, by Anthropic's own account, all launch benchmarks are Anthropic-reported and not yet independently reproduced, no published SWE-Bench Verified score, so head-to-head coding comparisons rely on Anthropic's own benchmark suite, and fast mode's throughput costs double the base price ($10/$50 per 1M). At $5 in / $25 out per million tokens, it sits in the premium price band.

Hunyuan Hy3: where it fits

A 295B Apache-2.0 open MoE that reaches frontier reasoning quality while running at roughly 21B active-parameter cost. Released July 6, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for frontier-level reported reasoning and science (GPQA Diamond 90.4) at low active-parameter cost, runs a 295B model at the cost of a 21B — only 21B parameters active per token, clean, unrestricted Apache-2.0 license with no geographic carve-out, and broad day-one ecosystem support plus an FP8 checkpoint.

Its trade-offs: benchmarks are largely self-reported, and the ultra-low hosted pricing is a limited promotion, and the hosted API is China-jurisdiction, and self-hosting a 295B MoE still needs serious hardware. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. Hunyuan Hy3 gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Claude Opus 5 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 Opus 5 and Hunyuan Hy3 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 Opus 5 or Hunyuan Hy3 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 Opus 5 leans toward frontier reasoning at lower cost per task — anthropic reports it more than doubling opus 4.8 on frontier-bench v0.1 while Hunyuan Hy3 leans toward frontier-level reported reasoning and science (gpqa diamond 90.4) at low active-parameter cost, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or Hunyuan Hy3?

Hunyuan Hy3 is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Claude Opus 5 is API-metered at $5/$25 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?

Claude Opus 5 — 1M vs 256K, about 3.9× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both Claude Opus 5 and Hunyuan Hy3 together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Claude Opus 5, Hunyuan Hy3 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 Opus 5 or Hunyuan Hy3?

Claude Opus 5 — released July 24, 2026, about 18 days after Hunyuan Hy3.

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.