Claude Fable 5
Claude Fable 5
Still excellent, but Fable 5.1 replaced it at the same price and Opus 5.5 beats both for less.
Updated
The read
Fable 5 was the top of this index in the summer and it remains a very strong model for long autonomous runs. It is now a legacy model: Fable 5.1 costs the same with better results and cheaper cached input, and Opus 5.5 outscores both at well under half the price. Anthropic will keep serving it until at least June 2027, so existing work does not need to move in a hurry. New work should start somewhere else.
Where it shines
- Holds a long, messy task together for hours without drifting
- Refuses cleanly and explains itself rather than inventing an answer
- Supported until at least June 2027
Worth knowing first
- Replaced by Fable 5.1 at the same price
- Opus 5.5 scores higher for well under half the cost
Index score
85.6
Provisional. This score is read from the product's public capability, not from the one-prompt rebuild the fully reviewed entries went through, so treat it as a placing rather than a verdict.
- Rank
- 17 of 73
- Builds
- LLMs
- Category
- Frontier
- Output
- Text, code and tool calls over an API
- Pricing
- Paid only
- Best for
- Existing pipelines already tuned to it
Scores are our own editorial judgement, weighted craft 55, speed 10, control 15 and value 20.
Compare it with
Also worth a look
Full index- 01Claude Opus 5.5Claude Opus 5.5ProvisionalFable-level answers for less than the Opus it replaces. The new default.Frontier modelPaid only92.8
- 03Gemini 4 ArgonGemini 4 ArgonProvisionalTop of the human-preference leaderboard, and almost nobody can use it yet.Frontier modelPaid only90.6
- 04GPT-6.1 SolGPT-6.1 SolProvisionalNear-Astra answers at a fifth of the price. The OpenAI model most teams should deploy now.Frontier modelPaid only90.3
