CLAUDE.md · price reverts to £5
| Feature | Claude (Anthropic) | Grok (xAI) |
|---|---|---|
| Latest model (May 2026) | Claude Sonnet 4.6 / Opus 4.7 | Grok 3 / Grok 3 mini |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Coding quality | Excellent (top benchmark scores) | Good, but lags Claude on complex tasks |
| Real-time web access | ~ Optional (Claude.ai UI only) | Yes (X data + web search built-in) |
| API availability | Full API (api.anthropic.com) | Yes (api.x.ai) |
| Input price (mid-tier) | $3/M tokens (Sonnet 4.6) | $2/M tokens (Grok 3) |
| Prompt caching | Yes (up to 90% cost reduction) | No |
| Safety / content policy | Constitutional AI (strict) | Less restrictive ("fun mode") |
| Free consumer access | Claude.ai free tier (Haiku 4.5) | Free via X platform (Grok 3) |
| Image understanding | Yes | Yes |
| Image generation | ✗ | Yes (Aurora model) |
| Long document analysis | Excellent (200K context) | Good (128K context) |
| Voice / audio | ✗ | ~ Limited |
On SWE-bench and standard coding benchmarks, Claude Opus 4.7 and Sonnet 4.6 consistently outperform Grok 3. The gap is most noticeable on:
Grok 3 is a capable coder — it handles everyday tasks well — but it doesn't match Claude for complex, multi-step coding challenges or long-context code analysis.
Grok's biggest genuine advantage is live data access. It can pull from:
Claude's training has a knowledge cutoff, and while Claude.ai offers web search as a toggle, it's not available in the raw API. If your use case depends on current information (market news, event tracking, live Q&A), Grok has a structural advantage.
For developers, this matters less — most coding, document, and data tasks don't require live web access.
| Model | Input (per 1M tokens) | Output (per 1M tokens) | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $0.80 | $4.00 | 200K |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | 200K |
| Claude Opus 4.7 | $15.00 | $75.00 | 200K |
| Grok 3 mini | $0.30 | $0.50 | 128K |
| Grok 3 | $2.00 | $10.00 | 128K |
Grok 3 mini is aggressively priced for a capable model. However, Claude's prompt caching (up to 90% cost reduction on repeated context) makes Claude competitive at scale for workloads with large shared system prompts or document contexts. Use our Claude cost calculator to estimate your real per-request cost.
Claude uses Constitutional AI — it's trained to be helpful, harmless, and honest. It has strong content guardrails that occasionally frustrate users who want direct answers about sensitive topics. Anthropic is transparent about its safety research.
Grok is designed to be less restrictive. xAI's "fun mode" is explicitly less filtered. For some professional contexts, Claude's predictability is an asset; for others, Grok's reduced friction is preferred. For enterprise compliance, Claude's Constitutional AI approach is generally the safer choice.
Yes, Claude is significantly better for coding — especially complex, multi-file, and long-context tasks. Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.7 top coding benchmarks, and the 200K token context window (vs Grok's 128K) is a major advantage for real-world codebases. Grok handles everyday coding tasks competently but doesn't match Claude's reliability on edge cases or multi-step reasoning.
Grok is available free to X platform users for conversational access to Grok 3. For API access via xAI's developer platform, paid billing is required. Claude offers a free tier on Claude.ai (Claude Haiku 4.5 with rate limits) and API access on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Yes — Grok has real-time access to X (Twitter) data and web search built in. Claude's API does not include live web access (though Claude.ai has an optional web search toggle in the UI). For building apps that need current information, Grok has a structural advantage. For coding, document analysis, and most developer tasks, static knowledge is sufficient.
Grok 3 mini ($0.30/$0.50 per 1M tokens) is cheaper than any Claude model. Grok 3 ($2/$10) is slightly cheaper than Claude Sonnet 4.6 ($3/$15). However, Claude's prompt caching dramatically reduces costs on repeated-context workloads — if you have a large system prompt or shared document context, Claude's effective per-request cost can drop by up to 90%, making it cost-competitive or cheaper than Grok at scale.
Grok 3 supports 128,000 tokens. Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.7 both support 200,000 tokens — 56% larger. For large file analysis, full codebase review, or processing long PDFs, Claude's context advantage is meaningful.