Best AI for coding: models, benchmarks, prices and tools

Coding benchmark leaderboard

All three benchmarks in the table below come from Vals AI. Terminal-Bench 4.0 and SWE-bench Multimodal run every model in the same Mini-SWE-agent harness, and every Vibe Code Bench v1.1 score shown is an OpenHands run (Vals also lists runs in other agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor CLI). These results were updated on October 29, 2026.

• Claude models hold the top spot on all three benchmarks, with Claude Opus 5.5 leading two and Claude Sonnet 5.5 leading one.
• Gemini 4 Argon takes second place on Vibe Code Bench at 91.91%, right behind Claude Sonnet 5.5 at 92.39%.
• Grok 4.7 at 28.79% and Kimi K3 at 17.17% trail on Terminal-Bench 4.0, despite costing $18.01 and $12.48 per task.

Best model for each job

• Long agentic terminal work: Claude Opus 5.5 leads Terminal-Bench 4.0 at 65.15% across 66 real terminal tasks, ahead of Claude Sonnet 5.5 at 64.14%.
• Bugs that need screenshots or UI context: Claude Opus 5.5 scores 70.21% on SWE-bench Multimodal across 480 image-dependent JavaScript GitHub issues.
• Building a web app from a prompt: Claude Sonnet 5.5 at 92.39% and Gemini 4 Argon at 91.91% top Vibe Code Bench v1.1.
• Rebuilding whole programs: Claude Opus 5.5 hits 18.50% on ProgramBench (rebuilding programs from binaries), more than double Claude Fable 5.1 at 7.00%.
• Tight budgets: GPT-6.1 Sol scores 55.05% on Terminal-Bench 4.0 at $1.72 per task.

What each model costs

The table below lists API prices per 1M input and output tokens alongside Vals AI's measured cost per Terminal-Bench 4.0 task for models including Gemini 4 Argon and Kimi K3. Task cost tracks how many tokens a model actually burns during an agent loop, not just its sticker price.

Best AI coding tools

The table below compares the main coding tools and the AI coding plans that pay for them. Subscription agents such as Claude Code, Codex and Google Antigravity include model usage in a flat monthly price, while Cursor Premium ($30 a month) bills third-party Claude, GPT and Gemini models at API list price.

Why SWE-bench Verified no longer ranks models

Vals AI has archived SWE-bench Verified (last updated September 1, 2026) because model performance on it saturated, and they no longer run it on new releases. The top archived scores are Claude Opus 5 at 97.00%, DeepSeek V4 Pro at 96.40% and GPT-5.6 Sol at 96.20%, so a gap of under one point no longer separates models.

Newer benchmarks still spread models widely, which is why this page ranks on them instead. Among the 10 models in the leaderboard above, Terminal-Bench 4.0 runs from 65.15% down to 13.64%, SWE-bench Multimodal spans 70.21% to 37.50%, and ProgramBench (updated October 20, 2026) goes from 18.50% down to 0.50%.

Use the top models with one key

The leading models sit behind different subscriptions: Claude Pro or Max, ChatGPT Plus or Pro, Google AI Pro or Ultra, and Kimi Code. Plan2API connects the subscriptions you already pay for and exposes them behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint at https://api.plan2api.com/v1, so you can call claude/claude-opus-5-5, openai/gpt-6-astra, openai/gpt-6.1-sol, gemini/gemini-4-argon-high and kimi/k3 with a single p2a_ API key, and it never bills per token.

You can link your accounts on the connect page. Plan2API Free ($0, no card needed) covers 1 connected subscription and 50 chat requests a day; Pro at $12 a month ($99 a year) covers 3 subscriptions with no daily request cap, and Scale at $29 a month ($249 a year) covers 25 subscriptions.