Frontier Intelligence Directory · Updated August 19, 2026
The decision layer on top of the raw data. Every frontier provider, model, and agentic platform — categorized by capability, priced live, and paired with a verdict. Built for humans and agents.
We cite OpenRouter, Artificial Analysis, and LMArena as sources, and add what they don’t: task-first navigation, the agentic-platform comparison, curated verdicts, and a creator-stack lens.
10
Providers tracked
31
Frontier models
0
Agentic platforms
22
Live-priced
The fastest path from “which model?” to an answer. One dominant constraint → a recommendation.
Select what your agent or pipeline demands. The simulator dynamically queries the proving ground receipts to calculate the optimal route.
Select one or more constraints to trigger routing recommendation.
| If you need… | Pick | Runner-up | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardest reasoning + knowledge work | Claude Opus 4.8 | GPT-5.5 | Tops the intelligence index — GDPval-AA 1890 and SWE-Bench Pro 69.2% lead the field. |
| Agentic coding | Claude Fable 5 | GPT-5.5 | New launch ceiling — 95% SWE-Bench Verified, ~80% SWE-Bench Pro vs GPT-5.5’s 58.6% (vendor-claimed). |
| Computer use + terminal autonomy | GPT-5.5 | Claude Opus 4.8 | Best published computer-use scores (84.9% GDPval, 78.7% OSWorld, 98% Tau2 Telecom). |
| Long-running xAI agents | Grok 4.6 | Grok 4.3 | Current xAI flagship (AA Index 61, vendor/AA, 12 Aug 2026). Same $2/$6 list under 200k as 4.5; no SIS arena receipt yet. |
| Lowest cost (closed frontier) | Grok 4.3 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Still the cheap Grok tier at $1.25/$2.50. Grok 4.6 is the flagship, not the bargain SKU. |
| Top open weights | Kimi K2.6 | DeepSeek V4 | Highest open-weights intelligence (AA Index 54); DeepSeek V4 is the close, MIT-licensed runner-up. |
| Lowest cost (open weights) | DeepSeek V4 | gpt-oss (120b / 20b) | Frontier-class coding (80.6% SWE-bench Verified) at open-weight economics under MIT. |
| Longest context | Grok 4.3 | GPT-5.5 | 2M-token native window; GPT-5.5 offers 1M at GA. |
| Native voice + broad multimodal | GPT-5.5 | Gemini 3.5 Pro | Native audio modality plus the widest general multimodal coverage. |
| Widest modality (incl. video) | Gemini 3.5 Pro | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Google’s top reasoning tier across text/vision/audio/video (Pro in preview; Flash is the GA workhorse). |
| EU data sovereignty | Mistral Large 3 | DeepSeek V4 | Apache 2.0, EU-resident endpoints, self-hostable frontier on a single 8×H200 node. |
| Self-host / own the weights | DeepSeek V4 | Llama 4 Maverick | Open-weight MoE frontier; Llama 4 for a permissive license + native multimodality. |
| Run on one consumer GPU | Gemma 4 | gpt-oss (120b / 20b) | Gemma 4 31B runs in ~18GB at Q4 (LMArena 1452); gpt-oss-20b is the ~16GB reasoning alternative. |
| Laptop / edge (smallest footprint) | Microsoft Phi-4 (open-weight family) | Gemma 4 | MIT-licensed 3.8B–15B STEM specialist that runs on a laptop; Gemma 4’s E2B/E4B tiers go smaller still. |
Model intelligence pricing varies up to 40x between tiers. Simulate monthly token spend across frontier models and evaluate hybrid routing savings.
Architect Dynamic Routing Strategy
Route 80% volume to Fast-Path (Gemini 3.7 Flash) + 20% to Deep-Reason (Claude Opus 5). Saves $68.00/mo (68%) vs 100% flagship.
DeepSeek
Cheapest frontier-class coding and agentic reasoning
Blazing speed leader with hybrid thinking
xAI
Real-time grounded orchestration and agent swarms
Anthropic
Balanced daily driver for coding and analysis
OpenAI
Unified frontier reasoning and multi-modal synthesis
Anthropic
Elite situational judgment, architecture & deep code craft
Anthropic
Mythos-class ceiling for long-horizon constraint precision
Pick the job, jump to the providers that lead.
Complex problem-solving, math, abstract reasoning, long-horizon planning
Vision, document, chart, and cross-modal reasoning across text/image/audio
Generative video models, text-to-video, image-to-video, editing
Agentic coding, terminal use, debugging, multi-file refactors
Tool use, function calling, agent SDKs, computer use, long-horizon execution
Native speech in/out, real-time conversation, audio understanding
Text-to-image, editing, in-painting, brand-consistent generation
Sort and filter every tracked model. Live pricing via OpenRouter where available. Click a model for the full breakdown.
31 models live pricing via OpenRouter
Creators don’t pick a model — they assemble a stack. Here’s what to use across each modality, and the workflow.
Generate, arrange, and master AI music
Workflow. Draft lyrics + style prompt with Claude → generate in Suno → iterate sections → export and master. The LLM is the creative director; Suno is the band.
AI Music MasterclassGenerate and edit on-brand visuals
Workflow. Concept + prompt with an LLM → generate hero with Imagen/Nano Banana → object-level edits (swap, resize, recolor) → export to the design system.
Visual creation systemGenerate and edit video with natural language
Workflow. Script with an LLM → generate with Omni → edit by instruction (background swap, camera angle) → produce. Increasingly a single agentic sequence.
Long-form, on-voice writing at depth
Workflow. Research + outline with Opus (1M context holds your whole corpus) → draft → tighten with Sonnet → publish. The brand voice gate stays human.
Content StudioShip code with agentic assistants
Workflow. Flash for the high-volume agent loop, Opus 4.6 for the critical reasoning path. Run inside Claude Code, Cursor, or Antigravity 2.0.
Frontier Models ArenaFlagship model, capability focus, agentic platforms, and notable tech for every tracked provider.
Models (9)
Models (3)
Flagship
Grok 4.6
Context
500K
Price (in/out)
$2/$6
Released
2026-08-12
Models (1)
Models (2)
Models (2)
Models (1)
Models (1)
Where the models actually do work — IDEs, CLIs, desktops, agent platforms, managed runtimes. The layer the data sites skip.
We synthesize; we don’t fabricate. Live pricing is attributed; benchmarks are sourced; vendor-reported figures are labelled as such and flagged pending independent reproduction.
OpenRouter
Live per-token pricing & availability (300+ models)
Artificial Analysis
Independent Intelligence Index, speed, latency
LMArena
Crowdsourced human-preference Elo
ARC Prize Foundation
ARC-AGI abstract reasoning benchmark
SWE-bench
Real-world software engineering tasks
Vendor model cards
Self-reported benchmarks (labelled as such)
There is no single winner. As of 14 August 2026, Grok 4.6 is the current xAI flagship and scores 61 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, matching GPT-5.6 Sol on that composite. Other seats still depend on the task — see the decision matrix and dated model pages rather than a global crown.
Those are the raw-data sources — OpenRouter for live pricing and routing, Artificial Analysis for independent benchmarks, LMArena for human preference. We cite all three. The FrankX LLM Hub adds the decision layer they don’t: task-first navigation, the agentic-platform comparison (Claude Code vs Antigravity vs Cursor vs Codex), curated verdicts, and a creator-stack lens — for humans and agents.
DeepSeek V3.2 leads on pure cost ($0.27 / $1.10 per 1M tokens, MIT license). Gemini 3.5 Flash is the cheapest closed-frontier option at $0.30 / $2.50. Both deliver frontier-class reasoning for production agentic workloads.
By category: coding agents — Gemini 3.5 Flash (76.2% Terminal-Bench 2.1) and Claude Opus 4.6; long-horizon enterprise — Gemini Spark and Claude Agent Teams; computer-use — GPT-5.2 Operator and Claude Opus 4.6 (72.7% OSWorld).
Where a model maps to OpenRouter, pricing is fetched live (hourly) and marked with a ⚡ icon and "via OpenRouter." Otherwise it comes from our curated registry. Always verify against the provider before relying on it for billing.
Yes. The full curated dataset — models, pricing, verdicts, decision matrix, comparisons — is available as clean JSON at /llm-hub.json, plus JSON-LD structured data on every page and deep links in /llms.txt.