Best LLM overall (October 2026)
As of 21 Oct 2026, the best LLM overall on independent benchmarks is Claude Opus 5.5 (max) by Anthropic (BenchLeader Index 72.7), ahead of Gemini 4 Argon (high) (BenchLeader Index 71.0) and Muse Wonder Full (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.7).
Ranked on the BenchLeader Index: every independent quality benchmark a model has results on, standardised per benchmark and averaged by category. One row per model, at its best-scoring reasoning effort.
433 models qualify · data as of 21 Oct 2026 · rebuilt once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC)
Claude Opus 5.5 max#1 here: BenchLeader Index 72.7Best value
Muse Spark 1.3 maxmost index points per dollar among the top 15 (67.2 at $2.00/M)Best open weights
Kimi K3 maxhighest-ranked model here you can run yourself (#16)Fastest of the top 15 Muse Wonder max161 output tokens per secondHead to head: Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 4 Argon (#1 vs #2) · Claude Opus 5.5 vs Muse Wonder Full (#1 vs #3) · Gemini 4 Argon vs Muse Wonder Full (#2 vs #3)
| # | Model | Index | Price $/M | Speed tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Claude Opus 5.5maxAnthropic | 72.7 | $8.00 | 95 |
| 2 |  Gemini 4 ArgonhighGoogle | 71.0 | $4.00 | 83 |
| 3 | Muse Wonder FullmaxMeta | 70.7 | – | – |
| 4 |  GPT-6 AstramaxOpenAI | 70.6 | $20.00 | 64 |
| 5 | Claude Fable 5.1maxAnthropic | 70.6 | $20.00 | 69 |
| 6 | GPT-6.1 SolmaxOpenAI | 70.0 | $4.00 | 55 |
| 7 | Claude Sonnet 5.5maxAnthropic | 69.5 | $4.00 | 137 |
| 8 | Claude Fable 5maxAnthropic | 69.4 | $20.00 | 67 |
| 9 | Claude Opus 5maxAnthropic | 68.9 | $10.00 | 54 |
| 10 | GPT-5.6 SolmaxOpenAI | 68.0 | $8.00 | 84 |
| 11 | Muse WondermaxMeta | 67.5 | $8.00 | 161 |
| 12 | Muse Spark 1.3maxMeta | 67.2 | $2.00 | 128 |
| 13 | GPT-6 SolmaxOpenAI | 66.6 | $4.00 | 118 |
| 14 | GPT-5.5xhighOpenAI | 66.1 | $11.25 | 92 |
| 15 | GPT-5.5 ProxhighOpenAI | 65.3 | $67.50 | 23 |
Full ranked list (433 models) · Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 4 Argon · Methodology · the LLM benchmarks behind this ranking
Best LLM overall: questions
- What is the best LLM overall in October 2026?
- As of 21 Oct 2026, the best LLM overall on independent benchmarks is Claude Opus 5.5 (max) by Anthropic (BenchLeader Index 72.7), ahead of Gemini 4 Argon (high) (BenchLeader Index 71.0) and Muse Wonder Full (max) (BenchLeader Index 70.7). BenchLeader reconciles 229 benchmarks from 43 benchmark publishers and rebuilds the ranking once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC).
- Which is the best value?
- Muse Spark 1.3 (max) gives the most BenchLeader Index points per dollar among the top 15 here: 67.2 at $2.00 per million tokens blended, against $8.00 for Claude Opus 5.5.
- What is the best open-weights option?
- Kimi K3 (max) by Moonshot AI is the highest-ranked open-weights model on this list, at #16.
- How is this ranked?
- Ranked on the BenchLeader Index: every independent quality benchmark a model has results on, standardised per benchmark and averaged by category. One row per model, at its best-scoring reasoning effort. Every score comes from an independent publisher and links to its source on the model page; self-reported launch numbers are excluded.
Cite as: BenchLeader, “Best LLM overall (October 2026)”, https://www.benchleader.com/best/llm, data as of 21 Oct 2026.