Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Anthropic · US | Tencent · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for terminal-bench 4.0 agentic coding jumps to 70.6%, up from claude sonnet 5's 10.3% or same $2/$10 per million token pricing as sonnet 5, with cache-read price cut 50% to $0.10/mtok as of october 7, 2026. 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 Sonnet 5.5 if you want a managed API.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (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 Sonnet 5.5 is anthropic's September 28, 2026 mid-tier update — same $2/$10 pricing as Sonnet 5 but a large agentic-coding jump (Terminal-Bench 4.0: 70.6% vs 10.3%). 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
- ▸Price: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is about 2.4× cheaper on input ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens vs $2/$10 per 1M tokens) — meaningful once you are processing millions of tokens a month.
- ▸Context window: both advertise 1M tokens (~1,500 pages). Tie on paper — test on your own long inputs, since usable recall varies by model.
- ▸Recency: Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the newer model by about 31 days (released September 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
- ▸Ecosystem: this is a US-vs-China matchup — they differ in pricing philosophy, data-residency options, and tooling ecosystems, not only benchmarks.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Hunyuan Hy4 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic (US) | Tencent (China) |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | August 28, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M tokens (~1,500 pages) | 1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages) |
| Price (in/out) | $2/$10 per 1M tokens | $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens |
| Open weight? | No — API only | Yes — self-hostable |
| Modalities | text, image, code | text |
| SWE-Bench Verified | Not published | Not published |
| MRCR v2 @ 1M | Not published | Not published |
Who wins what
Terminal-Bench 4.0 agentic coding jumps to 70.6%, up from Claude Sonnet 5's 10.3%
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic's September 28, 2026 mid-tier update — same $2/$10 pricing as Sonnet 5 but a large agentic-coding jump (Terminal-Bench 4.0: 70.6% vs 10.3%) — and it is the newer of the two.
Same $2/$10 per million token pricing as Sonnet 5, with cache-read price cut 50% to $0.10/MTok as of October 7, 2026
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists same $2/$10 per million token pricing as Sonnet 5, with cache-read price cut 50% to $0.10/MTok as of October 7, 2026 among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Scores close to Opus 5.5 on several benchmarks (e.g. GDPval-AA v2.1 knowledge-work Elo) at a fraction of the cost
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists scores close to Opus 5.5 on several benchmarks (e.g. GDPval-AA v2.1 knowledge-work Elo) at a fraction of the cost 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
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 Sonnet 5.5 is API-only.
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview lists sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9) among its strengths; Claude Sonnet 5.5 does not.
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 Sonnet 5.5, 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 Sonnet 5.5 is API-only.
Anyone whose priority is terminal-bench 4.0 agentic coding jumps to 70.6%, up from claude sonnet 5's 10.3%
→ Claude Sonnet 5.5
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 Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5: where it fits
Anthropic's September 28, 2026 mid-tier update — same $2/$10 pricing as Sonnet 5 but a large agentic-coding jump (Terminal-Bench 4.0: 70.6% vs 10.3%). Released September 28, 2026 by Anthropic, it is built for terminal-Bench 4.0 agentic coding jumps to 70.6%, up from Claude Sonnet 5's 10.3%, same $2/$10 per million token pricing as Sonnet 5, with cache-read price cut 50% to $0.10/MTok as of October 7, 2026, scores close to Opus 5.5 on several benchmarks (e.g. GDPval-AA v2.1 knowledge-work Elo) at a fraction of the cost, and anthropic highlights stronger document/slide generation, spreadsheet work, and visual chart recognition (Chartography: 61.6%).
Its trade-offs are real: anthropic is explicit that Opus 5.5 'remains clearly stronger' on complex, open-ended work requiring sustained judgment, 1M-token context isn't uniformly available across every platform/plan, consistent with the rest of the 5.5 family, and mid-tier update released a week after Opus 5.5 (Sept 22) — Haiku 5.5 followed Oct 7 to complete the family. At $2 in / $10 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid 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 Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5 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 pricingFrequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5 leans toward terminal-bench 4.0 agentic coding jumps to 70.6%, up from claude sonnet 5's 10.3% 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 Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5 is API-metered at $2/$10 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 Sonnet 5.5 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Claude Sonnet 5.5, 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 Sonnet 5.5 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 — released September 28, 2026, about 31 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.