Aya Expanse 8B vs Claude Opus 4
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Aya Expanse 8B specs · Claude Opus 4 specs- PriceClaude Opus 4
Claude Opus 4 publishes pricing ($75.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not.
- Context windowClaude Opus 4
Claude Opus 4 accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K, 24.4× the room for long documents and codebases.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesClaude Opus 4
Claude Opus 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Aya Expanse 8B.
- OpennessAya Expanse 8B
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Claude Opus 4 is API-only.
On balance Claude Opus 4 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Aya Expanse 8B's 1. Claude Opus 4 publishes pricing ($75.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not. Claude Opus 4 accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K, 24.4× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Aya Expanse 8B handles text while Claude Opus 4 handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Claude Opus 4 is API-only.
Claude Opus 4 is the newer of the two, released 7 months after Aya Expanse 8B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Aya Expanse 8B is usually picked for multilingual and translation workloads, while Claude Opus 4 sees more deployments in coding llm and coding agent. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Aya Expanse 8B | Claude Opus 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Anthropic |
| Released | Oct 2024 | May 2025 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision |
| Context window | 8.2K tokens | 200K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $15.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $75.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | 2025-03 |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $158
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $1,575
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $2,700
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Aya Expanse 8BPricing unavailable
- Claude Opus 4$5.25
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- HumanEval,95.0
- SWE-bench Verified,72.5
Aya Expanse 8B fits when…
- Multilingual at small size
- Strong cross-lingual transfer
- Efficient on commodity GPUs
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Claude Opus 4 fits when…
- Set the SWE-bench bar at launch
- Excellent for writing and code
- Strong long-context handling
- Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Aya Expanse 8B or Claude Opus 4 cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.Which has the larger context window?
Claude Opus 4 accepts 200K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.Is Aya Expanse 8B or Claude Opus 4 better for coding?
Both Aya Expanse 8B and Claude Opus 4 are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0). Claude Opus 4 is API-only.When were Aya Expanse 8B and Claude Opus 4 released?
Aya Expanse 8B was released by Cohere on 2024-10-23. Claude Opus 4 was released by Anthropic on 2025-05-22.
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