Grok 4 vs Grok Code Fast 1

Across our 12-test suite, Grok 4 wins 6 tests, Grok Code Fast 1 wins 1, and 5 tests tie. Detailed walk-through (scores shown as Grok 4 vs Grok Code Fast 1):

• strategic analysis: 5 vs 3 — Grok 4 wins. Ranking: Grok 4 tied for 1st ("tied for 1st with 25 other models out of 54 tested"). This matters for tasks requiring nuanced tradeoffs and numeric reasoning (e.g., financial modeling or product tradeoff analysis).
• constrained rewriting: 4 vs 3 — Grok 4 wins (rank 6 of 53, many tied). Practical implication: better at compressing or rewriting to strict character limits.
• faithfulness: 5 vs 4 — Grok 4 wins and is tied for 1st ("tied for 1st with 32 other models out of 55 tested"). For source-faithful summaries or legal/medical drafting, Grok 4 reduces hallucination risk in our testing.
• long context: 5 vs 4 — Grok 4 wins and is tied for 1st ("tied for 1st with 36 other models out of 55 tested"); Grok Code Fast 1 ranks 38 of 55. This indicates Grok 4 is noticeably better when working with 30K+ token retrieval or multi-file inputs.
• persona consistency: 5 vs 4 — Grok 4 wins and is tied for 1st (useful for sustained characterized chat/agent flows).
• multilingual: 5 vs 4 — Grok 4 wins and is tied for 1st (better parity across non-English languages in our tests).

Ties (same score for both models):

• structured output: 4 vs 4 — both rank similarly ("rank 26 of 54 (27 models share this score)") and perform comparably for JSON/schema adherence.
• creative problem solving: 3 vs 3 — both equal; limited differences for brainstorming non-obvious ideas.
• tool calling: 4 vs 4 — tied; both handle function selection and sequencing at similar levels in our tests.
• classification: 4 vs 4 — both tied for 1st ("tied for 1st with 29 other models") — both reliable for routing/categorization tasks.
• safety calibration: 2 vs 2 — both match on refusal/allow calibration in our suite.

Single B win:

• agentic planning: 3 vs 5 — Grok Code Fast 1 wins and is tied for 1st ("tied for 1st with 14 other models out of 54 tested"). This aligns with its product description emphasizing fast, steerable reasoning traces and agentic coding workflows.

In short: Grok 4 shows clear advantages for long-context retrieval, staying faithful to sources, strategic numeric reasoning, constrained rewriting, persona consistency, and multilingual quality. Grok Code Fast 1’s standout advantage is agentic planning / coding workflow performance, combined with a large price premium in Grok 4’s favor.

Prices in the payload are per mTok (per 1k tokens). Grok 4: input $3/mTok + output $15/mTok = $18 per 1k tokens. Grok Code Fast 1: input $0.20/mTok + output $1.50/mTok = $1.70 per 1k tokens. At 1M tokens/month (≈1,000 mTok): Grok 4 ≈ $18,000/month vs Grok Code Fast 1 ≈ $1,700/month. At 10M tokens: $180,000 vs $17,000. At 100M tokens: $1,800,000 vs $170,000. Teams doing heavy inference (≥10M tokens/month) should care: Grok 4’s per-token premium quickly becomes material. Choose Grok 4 when its higher scores on long context, faithfulness, and strategic analysis justify that cost; choose Grok Code Fast 1 when budget, latency, or high-volume coding automation dominate requirements.

Choose Grok 4 if you need: high-fidelity outputs on long-context inputs, stronger faithfulness and strategic/numeric reasoning, or robust multilingual/persona consistency — you get top scores (5) in long context, faithfulness, strategic analysis, persona consistency, and multilingual in our tests. Choose Grok Code Fast 1 if you need: low-cost, high-throughput coding and agentic planning (agentic planning 5 vs Grok 4’s 3), or you must run large-volume inference on a budget — it costs roughly $1,700/month at 1M tokens vs Grok 4’s $18,000. If you need both, consider using Grok Code Fast 1 for bulk code generation/agents and Grok 4 for final verification, long-document reasoning, or sensitive outputs where faithfulness matters.