Long-context guide
Best Long-Context Models
For giant documents, repos, transcripts, and agent memory buffers, context window only helps when it is paired with retrieval discipline and pricing you can actually afford.
| Model | Context | Best for | Input $/M |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-5.5 OpenAI | 1M | Complex reasoning | $5 |
| Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic | 1M | Complex reasoning | $5 |
| GPT-5.4 OpenAI | 1M | Coding | $2.5 |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | 1M | Multimodal tasks | $2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1M | Fast multimodal agents | $1.5 |
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic | 1M | Balanced performance | $3 |
| Llama 4 Maverick Meta | 1M | Open weights | $2 |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek | 1M | Budget coding | $0.435 |
| Grok 4.3 xAI | 1M | Long context | $1.25 |
| GPT-5.2-Codex OpenAI | 400K | Coding-focused tasks | $1.75 |
| GPT-5.2 OpenAI | 400K | General-purpose | $1.75 |
| Qwen3 Max 2026-01-23 Alibaba | 262K | Multilingual | $1.2 |
| Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI | 256K | Visual coding | $0.6 |
| GLM-5 Zhipu AI | 205K | Bilingual (CN/EN) | $0.5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 MiniMax | 196K | Real-world productivity | $0.3 |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 Mistral | 128K | European compliance | $2 |
| GPT-OSS-120B OpenAI | 128K | Self-hosted | $0 |
Fast picks
- GPT-5.5 for hard reasoning over large inputs with a 1M-token context window
- Claude Opus 4.8 for long-running agentic coding and professional document workflows
- Gemini 3.5 Flash for fast, search-grounded long-context multimodal work
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview when you want Google's higher-intelligence preview option
- DeepSeek V4 Pro when 1M context and low token cost matter more than frontier polish