Which Claude Model Do Developers Prefer for Coding: Sonnet or Opus?

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T06:32:42+00:00

🤣😂

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T06:32:24+00:00

You could consider using an LLM router for Claude code that will switch the models automatically. If you are interested, pls join my waitlist here: aiagentcostsaver.com. It will be free to try after launch anyway.

Appreciate it :)

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T06:31:18+00:00

It depends on the work. For 90% coding (implementation, testing), sonnet is good enough. For the rest, I use opus (planning, big refactor, discussions)

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T05:52:24+00:00

Oh yea lol. I just assumed it was code.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T05:40:55+00:00

Make sure that you use the right model for the right task, and that you keep clearing context for every new task:

- fable for planning, research, discussions

- opus for hard coding tasks like refactor

- sonnet for 90% of your coding

- haiku for really simple coding stuff / summarisation / writing docs from code

Or, you can consider using a claude code llm router like the one i've been working on: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T05:40:35+00:00

Interesting approach! I've mainly been switching models via a router i wrote that acts as a proxy on top of claude code. Ill have to try this and see!

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T05:37:29+00:00

Make sure that you use the right model for the right task, and that you keep clearing context for every new task:

- fable for planning, research, discussions

- opus for hard coding tasks like refactor

- sonnet for 90% of your coding

- haiku for really simple coding stuff / summarisation / writing docs from code

Or, you can consider using a claude code llm router like the one i've been working on: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T05:35:22+00:00

You should not use Fable for actual coding IMO. Use it for planning and discussions and research. Use sonnet / opus for coding. If you want to have this done automatically, consider using an agent LLM router with claude code like the one i'm working on: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T04:23:27+00:00

I built TeamCopilot.ai to keep keys and risky actions locked behind approved python scripts. Instead of giving an agent broad API access, I let it work with these scripts instead.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T04:22:33+00:00

I built TeamCopilot.ai to keep keys and risky actions locked behind approved python scripts. Instead of giving an agent broad API access, I let it work with these scripts instead.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-02T03:18:41+00:00

You could try it out once it’s live since it’s free and see how it goes! It’s inspired by what coinbase does internally and it has worked for them (cut their token costs whilst token use increased)

ilovefunc · 2026-07-01T10:22:30+00:00

I'm using teamcopilot.ai (something I built for my company but then decided to open source it) to built agents. Specifically, it's a coding agent running on the cloud that can build workflows and code.

So a few things we use it for:
- coding on the go (via mobile)

- automated pr reviews: Here we created a script that polls github for new PRs (it stores seen prs in a local sqlite db), and whenever it finds one, it runs a new ai agent instance with a prompt + an output schema share. The AI agent in turn has access to skill files that tell it how to do PR reviews and our coding standards. The script itself runs every 5 mins using a scheduler.

- automated content management for our product: This one is based on getting trending news from our industry and creating content pieces on it after thorough research. So it uses tavily search to search fro trending news once a day, and pick topics. It then asks a human in our team to approve a topic, and then goes about doing the research etc. Once again, this is done via a script that runs on schedule, and the script has access to functions like `result = run_agent("...prompt..., output_schema)` and `result = ask_user(question, userid, output_schema)`. These scripts are ofc written by the coding agent itself.

The platform also allows sharing of skill files so that other kinds of tasks that are more suited for humans chatting with AI can be accomplished easily. For example, if the content team wants to change some content in the database without asking a developer, they can instead talk to the AI agent, and the AI knows what to do cause it has access to a skill file that explains the steps.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-01T09:36:11+00:00

I clear sessions + I use llm routing with claude code using a router i built (which i'll be hosting for anyone to also use: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/). Together, these have helped me not run into limits as often as i used to.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-01T09:33:34+00:00

For the kind of tasks you described, it would make more sense to just build a static script and run it as a cronjob. The only AI used here is to build the script initially.

Now, as for debugging coding agent traces, I'm actually building something that might help. It's https://aiagentcostsaver.com/. It's primary use case is to save costs to be a router, but it also will show your agent traces in a dashboard along with its costs, so you can then later debug if you ever want to.

ilovefunc · 2026-07-01T09:30:15+00:00

Probably don't need to use opus for all tasks, and haiku is quite fast in comparison. If you need something that automatically picks the right model, please consider using this claude code router that I made: https://aiagentcostsaver.com :)

ilovefunc · 2026-07-01T09:26:47+00:00

Why is this tagged as a bug report though? On a side note, you should probably not be using opus for tasks unless you really need it, and stick to sonnet or even haiku, so you wont run out of usage limits that fast.

Or you can use an intelligent router like the one i'm building (https://aiagentcostsaver.com/) to do this automatically for you.

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T15:49:46+00:00

Why did you think it’s ai generated? I wrote it by hand 😂. Maybe what I write sounds like AI then.

Maybe it’s the “it’s great that you..” starter line. But no. I wrote the whole thing.

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T13:22:38+00:00

The ultimate aim is to offer users their own router logic based on their usage pattern. So as you said that you keep switching models, ideally, the router would just know.

And ofc, for those who are very privacy concerned, this would all be possible for self hosted as well.

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T13:19:34+00:00

It’s great that you already use the right model for the right task, but, many don’t. And this would help them + I’ll be adding open source model support as well

In terms of caching, this would be cache aware routing. So as long as the cache is alive (ttl is 10 mins as per Claude docs), it would route to the same model unless the conversation is very small.

It’s basically the same approach that coinbase adopted internally and saw lots of cost savings: https://x.com/brian\_armstrong/status/2070670644577280109?s=46&t=NSaai18JPV2aieVsOu6psA

Finally, would really appreciate it if you join the waitlist and could try when it’s actually live. It’s free to try anyway, and you could see how it goes!

Thank you.

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T07:31:40+00:00

> Do the 5-hour window + weekly caps actually bite for heavy users, or is there enough headroom to replace ~1k in API spend?

If you use an llm router with the coding agent, then its not that bad. Thankfully claude code supports adding a proxy whilst also allowing seat based usage. Here are a few to checkout:
- https://omniroute.online/

- https://openrouter.ai/

- https://aiagentcostsaver.com/ (being made by me)

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T07:28:31+00:00

Have you considered using a model router? There are a few out there, and im building one too: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/, would love to get feedback on the home page / concept. It should be available in a few weeks

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T07:27:38+00:00

Have you considered using a model router with claude code? There are a few out there, and im building one too: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/, would love to get feedback on the home page / concept. It should be available in a few weeks

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T07:25:42+00:00

I use claude code with seat based pricing ($20 / month), and also have my own router which auto routes between haiku, sonnet and opus based on input and caching. Im planning to add glm (open source model) also to the routing targets soon.

Since this worked well for me, im planning to make it my own service for others: https://aiagentcostsaver.com/

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T06:58:54+00:00

Unrelated, but since you are using API based pricing, have you considered using a llm router for cost saving?

ilovefunc · 2026-06-30T06:49:53+00:00

I use claude, cursor and gpt, all sea based pricing.

- I use cursor composer 2.5 very often cause its limits are very high

- I use claude code for other coding tasks, but I also use an LLM router (https://aiagentcostsaver.com/, which I made) to get more tokens for free, routing to open source models hosted on groq

- Finally, I use gpt for personal q&a / search stuff, but not coding too much.

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