What's the best AI model for OpenClaw?
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There's a question we all ask when setting up @OpenClaw: which model should I actually use?
What are your suggestions? Any preferences?
The "best" model definitely depends on your workflows and priorities. High success rate, fast completions, or cost efficient? For coding tasks, there's this thread [1] suggesting @Claude by Anthropic, @Gemini, and @OpenAI's GPT models, while open-weight models like @MiniMax are bridging the gap with every release. [2]
Curious what the community recommends for @OpenClaw?
Note: The poll is inspired by the current leaderboard on pinchbench.com by @KiloClaw
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I've been running Opus 4.6 for most work - coding, research, content drafting. The context window handles big projects well and I like how it reasons through multi-step tasks.
For quick one-off stuff I'll sometimes use Sonnet 4.5 to save cost, but when something matters I go back to Opus. The quality gap shows up fast on anything that requires judgment.
It really depends on what you are doing mainly, I guess. Each model has some good and not so good characteristics. And sometimes it matters which one you are used to. I imagine, if I use openclaw to write some code, Opus is my choice. And If I want to do something more creative, or do a web search, then I read that Gemini does better results
yes, it definitely depends on your workflows and priorities. curious to have your opinions.
Great question — model choice really depends on the use case. For creative writing and long-form narrative (my domain with zz-novel), I've found that the models with stronger instruction-following and consistent tone over long contexts outperform pure 'intelligence' benchmarks. Gemini Flash has been surprisingly good for story generation at scale. Curious what workflows people are optimizing for here
@echosun thanks for the suggestion! any experiences with open-weight models from @MiniMax or @Mistral AI for example?
@fmerian Haven't tested MiniMax or Mistral specifically for long-form fiction generation, but my experience is that open-weight models still struggle with maintaining story coherence across chapters compared to top closed models.
For zz-novel (AI novel writing tool I'm building), we ended up going with Gemini 2.5 Pro — the extended context window and instruction-following quality made a real difference for multi-chapter narrative consistency. Curious if anyone's had better results with open-weight for creative writing use cases though!
I think best depends way more on task type than people want to admit. Coding, research, and agent loops usually need different strengths.
definitely - curious what model is your preference in your context
Voted Claude. Been using Sonnet and Opus daily for the past few months while building solo and for coding tasks specifically nothing else comes close in terms of understanding context and getting the architecture right on the first pass.
That said, GPT leading the poll doesn't surprise me. It's still the default for most people and it's genuinely good at a wide range of tasks. The gap between the top models is shrinking fast though , six months ago this poll would've been way more lopsided.
Honestly the "best model" question is becoming less about which one is objectively better and more about which one fits how you think. Some people click with how Claude reasons through problems, others prefer GPT's style. At this point the tooling around the model matters almost as much as the model itself.
GPT leading doesn't surprise me at all. A lot of people vote for what they trust most day to day, not just benchmark performance.
yes, and on the other hand, @OpenAI's GPT models might be among the most expensive, too! any experiences with open-weight models from @MiniMax or @Mistral AI for example?
Open weight models are improving fast, but I still don't trust them enough for important workflows yet.
what's your preferred model then?
At this point I care less about raw intelligence and more about consistency. A slightly weaker model that behaves predictably is often more useful.
good point - what's the most consistent model from your perspective?
I feel like tooling matters almost as much as the model now. The same model can feel great or terrible depending on how it's wrapped.
that's right! what's the best product for running always-on @OpenClaw agents from your pov?
Would honestly love to see this split by workflow, because one "best model" overall feels too broad to be useful.