Pelicans from Astra, plus 5.6 Sol, Terra, Luna for comparison: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/gpt-6-and-5.6-p...
I think this is a genuinely interesting comparison grid. Astra may be more expensive, but if you have a budget of 10 cents for a Pelican Astra low gives you something SO much better than the other models.
Astra uses less tokens overall too, for better results.
Astra transcript here: https://tools.simonwillison.net/markdown-svg-renderer?url=ht...
Quote from the thinking trace:
> I’m thinking about how a helmet would obscure lemur ears, but using an electric scooter helmet seems responsible.
It's pretty solid - face is a little wonky but excellent tail and scooter.
Treat it like a bit as is
You’ve been doing this public service for so long (well, for so long in “AI hype” years anyway) that it’d be fascinating to see the evolution of this artifact across time.
I'm running out of excuses not to build a proper comparison site though. Maybe I'll have Astra do rhat.
The improved front fork design mentioned by Threatripper is about the only thing Astra is doing better, IMO.
Reminded me of https://clocks.brianmoore.com/
Isnt Netherlands the leader in bike riders and they dont wear helmets.
https://openai.com/index/advancing-the-price-performance-fro...
Sol discount is until November 21, 2026 according to https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/changelog
Luna — costs in cents
+--------+--------+---------+
| Effort | Before | After |
+--------+--------+---------+
| max | 7.83 | 1.57 |
| xhigh | 4.24 | 0.85 |
| high | 2.46 | 0.49 |
| medium | 1.26 | 0.25 |
| low | 0.76 | 0.15 |
| none | 0.71 | 0.14 |
+--------+--------+---------+
Per million tokens:
Before: $1 input / $6 output
After: $0.20 input / $1.20 output
Sol — costs in cents
+--------+--------+---------+
| Effort | Before | After |
+--------+--------+---------+
| max | 48.55 | 32.37 |
| xhigh | 24.11 | 16.08 |
| high | 10.38 | 6.92 |
| medium | 10.55 | 7.03 |
| low | 8.33 | 5.55 |
| none | 5.90 | 3.93 |
+--------+--------+---------+
Per million tokens:
Before: $5 input / $30 output
After: $4 input / $20 output
Terra — costs in cents
+--------+--------+---------+
| Effort | Before | After |
+--------+--------+---------+
| max | 32.09 | 25.67 |
| xhigh | 14.67 | 11.74 |
| high | 3.74 | 2.99 |
| medium | 3.46 | 2.77 |
| low | 3.47 | 2.78 |
| none | 2.60 | 2.08 |
+--------+--------+---------+
Per million tokens:
Before: $2.50 input / $15 output
After: $2 input / $12 outputHere's an image design source of truth: https://image.non.io/78f4cd8b-2560-4643-9a51-96a89171f994.we...
And here's the page it build from it: https://image.non.io/e7d3a9e5-f9df-4fd8-b79f-1f90280f978f.we...
Note the flowing svg lines, and how accurately it recreated them. Here's Opus 5 for comparison - you can really see how while Astra really recreated the flow that was in the original design, opus only got the general vibe: https://image.non.io/dfe13de0-4487-431f-8b69-544ff3030dac.we...
One thing I will say is you are paying for quality. That site build cost $24 - extremely non-trivial for a simple frontend.
https://aibenchy.com/compare/openai-gpt-6-astra-high/google-...
It took a while to test it, initially OpenRouter was giving Not Found errors for this model ID.
It's more "correct" but looks a lot worse in my opinion:
https://aibenchy.com/compare/openai-gpt-6-astra-high/google-...
https://aibenchy.com/showcase/?page=2#showcase=67fc6d6c8e4c3...
https://aibenchy.com/showcase/?page=3#showcase=c215b5c915da6...
Good point about the mouths, I just noticed, lol
Imo, it's still better than most models, I personally like the stylized perspective.
You can view here all generations for all models: https://aibenchy.com/showcase/
Edit: nevermind it JUST gave me a notification to use it!
Yeah, when I saw that Tweet I knew the person was saying it because they knew it'll be available within 24h.
I'm a Business plan user with Cyber verification enabled, FWIW.
Has there been anything published about if Astra uses different amount of usage from your subscription plan compared to Sol? Don't recall coming across that in the press releases.
Do Azure offer something that simply hitting the OpenAI endpoint doesn't provide?
