Step 5 Preview vs Claude Opus 5.5
Step 5 Preview took 10 min 44 s and $0.33 at list price, Claude Opus 5.5 took 11 min 46 s and $1.57 at list price. Claude Opus 5.5 took 1.1× as long and cost 4.8× as much.
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · $2.70/M out · 155 HN pts
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic · $20.00/M out · 2,737 HN pts
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person workshop based in Rotterdam, dedicated to keeping vintage synthesizers alive and playable. We are technicians, musicians, and obsessive tinkerers who believe that classic analog instruments deserve better than silence. From temperamental Jupiter-8s to worn-out ARP Odysseys, we restore, repair, and maintain the machines that shaped the sound of modern music. Every repair starts with listening—both to the instrument and to the person who plays it. Whether you are chasing a rare fault, need a full calibration, or simply want your old synth to feel new again, our bench is open. We understand that no two synthesizers arrive with the same story, and we treat each circuit, slider, and key with the care its history deserves. At Patchbay, we are here to make sure the sounds of tomorrow are built on those that came before.
Patchbay is three people in a narrow workshop near the Maas in Rotterdam. Every day we open up instruments that were built before most of their current owners were born. Some arrive in flight cases and some come wrapped in old bath towels. Most have a story: a Juno that went quiet halfway through a gig, a Minimoog left in someone's attic for thirty years, or a modular system that a previous technician gave up on.
We started Patchbay because we kept seeing good synthesizers sent off as "unrepairable" when all they needed was patience, a schematic and a steady hand. We swap out dried capacitors, hunt for intermittent faults, recalibrate oscillators until they track properly again, and source or rebuild parts that stopped being made decades ago.
We don't try to make old machines sound new. Our job is to make them sound like themselves again, and to make sure they keep working for the next person who plays them.
Specs and numbers
| Step 5 Preview | Claude Opus 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | StepFun | Anthropic |
| Made in | China | US |
| Released | 8 Oct 2026 | 22 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $1.00 | $4.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.70 | $20.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 155 | 2,737 |
| Time for the six prompts | 10 min 44 s | 11 min 46 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.33 | $1.57 |
Step 5 Preview was cheaper: $1.24 less at list price, and less on 5 of the 6 prompts. Step 5 Preview was faster: 62 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's rebuild matched the screenshot at 89%; Step 5 Preview was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Step 5 Preview was not in it.





