Opus 4.8 vs N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)

What I tested — same prompt, two models

I run the same fixed prompt set through every new model the day it drops — same string, one shot, single HTML file out — and I score the result 0–10 on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. Below is what came out when I gave the exact same prompts to Opus 4.8 and N2 (Nex-N2-Pro), side by side, on 0 shared tasks inside the Agent Operating System.

Both models were given identical prompts inside the Agent Operating System — no help, no iteration, no "best of N" tricks. I run each prompt once, save the HTML file the model produces, and score it 0–10 on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. The scoring is mine. The verdicts below are pulled from my source comparison guides at agentos.guide where I publish every score and the reasoning behind it.

Opus 4.8 · The default when the build has to ship on the first prompt — Opus is the safety net inside Agent OS for hard one-shots.

N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) · Wired into Hermes as the free local frontier coder. Dispatched from Agent OS for any task where the per-token bill would dominate.

Strengths & weaknesses I logged

Pricing & context — the spec sheet

The verdict — which should you pick?

Not enough scored shared tasks yet for a head-to-head average. The live demos for both are on the matrix above — play them and form your own opinion.

If you only run one of these inside your stack, the head-to-head average above is the call. If you can run both, my honest play is to wire Opus 4.8 and N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) both into the Agent Operating System and dispatch each from the kanban by task type — mission-critical one-shot builds where 'has to work the first time' matters → Opus 4.8, local agent loops that need a free frontier-class coder → N2 (Nex-N2-Pro). That's the same setup I run for the 3,600+ founders inside the AI Profit Boardroom.

FAQ — Opus 4.8 vs N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)

Which is better, Opus 4.8 or N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)?

On Goldie Bench, Opus 4.8 averages no scored verdicts yet across the shared tasks, with 8 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze overall. N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) averages no scored verdicts yet, with 0 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze. Not enough scored shared tasks yet to call a winner.

How much does Opus 4.8 cost vs N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)?

Opus 4.8: Premium pricing via the Anthropic API: $15 per million input tokens, $75 per million output tokens. Extended thinking is included but adds latency. N2 (Nex-N2-Pro): Nex AGI's flagship N2 (full name Nex-N2-Pro) runs free for individuals inside Hermes on your own Mac. Vendor-reported SWE-bench Verified: 80.8% — the highest published coding score among the free dragons (Kimi K2.6 / GLM / N2).

What's the context window for Opus 4.8 vs N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)?

Opus 4.8 has a 200,000 tokens (1M with extended thinking) context window. N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) has a Specs not yet public context window.

When should I pick Opus 4.8 over N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)?

Pick Opus 4.8 for: Mission-critical one-shot builds where 'has to work the first time' matters; Hard reasoning tasks (planning, multi-step) where you'll pay for the depth; Anything where vendor reliability beats the per-token bill. The trade-off is the weaknesses we logged on the bench: 5–10× the per-token cost of every other model on the bench; Less flair on cinematic visuals than GLM-5.2 — playing it safer wins on accuracy, costs you on showpiece moments.

When should I pick N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) over Opus 4.8?

Pick N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) for: Local agent loops that need a free frontier-class coder; Privacy-sensitive workflows (no cloud round-trip); Operators experimenting with Hermes who want to compare local models against the cloud field. The trade-off is the weaknesses we logged on the bench: Vendor-reported benchmark (not independently verified yet); No goldiebench per-task scores yet.

How does Goldie Bench score Opus 4.8 vs N2 (Nex-N2-Pro)?

Every demo on this page was built by Julian Goldie inside the Agent Operating System — same fixed prompt for both models, one shot, single HTML file out. Each result gets a 0–10 score on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. The highest score on each task gets gold; second gets silver; third gets bronze. See methodology for full provenance.

Related comparisons

Other head-to-heads using the same scoring system:

Full model pages: Opus 4.8 · N2 (Nex-N2-Pro) · back to the leaderboard