Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.1 Instant

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is a general-purpose language model from Anthropic, released in February 2026 as an update to the Sonnet 4 line that introduced adaptive thinking — a mode where the model automatically calibrates its reasoning depth based on task complexity rather than requiring manual configuration by the developer. The model accepts text and image inputs and integrates natively with web search and code execution tools, consolidating capabilities that previously required separate toolchain setup into a unified API surface. It became the primary workhorse model in the Claude 4 series for code assistance, agentic pipelines, and retrieval-augmented applications that benefit from built-in web access.

GPT-5.1 Instant

OpenAI

GPT-5.1 Instant, released by OpenAI in November 2025, is a low-latency variant from the GPT-5.1 family optimized for fast response times and high-throughput workloads. It targets real-time applications, conversational assistants, and production APIs where response speed is a primary requirement alongside GPT-5.1-generation reasoning quality.