Step 5 Preview vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
Step 5 Preview took 10 min 44 s and $0.33 at list price, Claude Sonnet 5.5 took 3 min 49 s and $0.34 at list price. Step 5 Preview took 2.8× as long, and both cost about the same.
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · $2.70/M out · 155 HN pts
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic · $10.00/M out · 9 HN pts
Only Claude Sonnet 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 workshop in Rotterdam, trying to keep old synthesizers alive. We repair, restore and recalibrate the instruments that shaped electronic music: Moogs and Oberheims, Rolands and Sequential Circuits, the odd temperamental Soviet oddity that someone found in an attic.
Most of what lands on our benches has been silent for years. A crackling pot, a drifting oscillator, a power supply that gave up in 1994. Some come from working musicians who need their instrument back before the next tour. Others come from people who inherited a dusty box from a parent and want to hear what it sounds like.
We work slowly and by hand. We trace faults with a scope and a schematic, source or rebuild parts when originals are gone, and change as little as we can. Every synth leaves with a note describing exactly what we did, so the next person to open it knows where we have been.
Come by, bring your synth, and stay for coffee.
Specs and numbers
| Step 5 Preview | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | StepFun | Anthropic |
| Made in | China | US |
| Released | 8 Oct 2026 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $1.00 | $2.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.70 | $10.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 155 | 9 |
| Time for the six prompts | 10 min 44 s | 3 min 49 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.33 | $0.34 |
Both cost about the same at list price: $0.33 and $0.34. Claude Sonnet 5.5 was faster: 6 min 55 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Sonnet 5.5's rebuild matched the screenshot at 94%; Step 5 Preview was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Sonnet 5.5's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Step 5 Preview was not in it.





