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Model comparison 2026

GPT-5.6 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra

GPT-5.6 Sol
OpenAI · Frontier · Proprietary
$4.40/1M · 1.1M ctx
GPT-6 Astra
OpenAI · Frontier · Proprietary
$22/1M · 1.1M ctx

Community vote

Pick a winner in each dimension. You can change your vote any time.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for money
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results: fewer refusals, loops and format breaks

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-6 Astra
Maker
OpenAI
OpenAI
Blended price / 1M
$4.40
$22
Input / output
$2.00 in · $10 out / 1M tokens
$10 in · $50 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1.1M
1.1M
Open weights
No
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
9.5
9.7
Agentic Ability
9.4
9.7
Speed
7.4
6.8
Value for money
7.8
6.9
Reliability
9.3
9.3

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: GPT-5.6 Sol or GPT-6 Astra?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose GPT-5.6 Sol if you want hard coding and research tasks for teams in the OpenAI ecosystem. Choose GPT-6 Astra if you want the hardest coding and research tasks in OpenAI-based stacks, where cost is secondary.

Editorially it's close: each model leads in 2 of our five dimensions. On price, GPT-5.6 Sol runs about $4.40 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; GPT-6 Astra is about $22 and proprietary.

Where GPT-5.6 Sol falls short
  • Superseded by GPT-6.1 Sol, which scores well above it on agent benchmarks
  • Slower and pricier than Terra for routine work
Full GPT-5.6 Sol breakdown →
Where GPT-6 Astra falls short
  • Five times GPT-6.1 Sol's price for a small measured gain
  • Slow: about 66 output tokens/s at max effort
Full GPT-6 Astra breakdown →

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