GPT-5.6 Terra
Shares rank 30 of 72 language models by recommenders
People recommend Terra as a faster, cheaper model close to Sol in quality. Critics say it is hard to tell apart from Sol and weak on technical tasks.
People recommend Terra as a faster, cheaper model close to Sol in quality. Critics say it is hard to tell apart from Sol and weak on technical tasks.
56 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 27
- criticize it
- 29
- approval share
- 48%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 27 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong coding and writing results
“GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “Claude Session URL appended to commit messages and PR descriptions by default” “Our custom enterprise agent is currently running on 5.6-Terra and it's already very good.”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “GPT-6.1 Terra” “as good as Fable on DeepSWE while cheaper than Opus API pricing”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” - Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Free GPT 5.6 Terra and Luna (2.5M/day) & 250k Sol – free experiments”
Cuts costs and response times
“Terra if the benchmarks are as claimed is indeed a half-price GPT 5.5 at comparable performance”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Previewing GPT‑5.6 Sol: a next-generation model” “has cut our cost in half by itself, as well as improved response times by 50%”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Migrating a production AI agent to GPT-5.6: 2.2x faster, 27% cheaper” “it seems to work well, and reduce costs a lot”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Advancing the price-performance frontier with GPT‑5.6” Better than GPT-5.5
“Terra if the benchmarks are as claimed is indeed a half-price GPT 5.5 at comparable performance”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Previewing GPT‑5.6 Sol: a next-generation model” “I too have been using 5.3 codex as a cheap-but-good model and are switching to Terra (xhigh)”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” “Terra is better than GPT 5.5”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Free GPT 5.6 Terra and Luna (2.5M/day) & 250k Sol – free experiments” Faster and cheaper than Sol
“The Terra quality is usually nearly as good as Sol, but much faster and cheaper.”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6, Grok 4.5, Claude, and Muse Spark build the same 4 apps” “Terra has better latency and output speed than Sol”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard to tell from Sol
“Trying to convince us there is a difference between GPT-6-Sol and GPT-5.6-Terra or whatnot is ludicrous to the point of being insulting”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “GPT-6 Sol and Luna” “Trying to pick between "Sol" and "Terra" is like asking the average person if they want the Max or the Ultra chip.”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” “I am sick and tired of the inconsistencies in GPT model families”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “GPT-6 Sol and Luna” Weak on technical tasks
“Terra has not been able to do any of the technical tasks I've asked of it correctly.”
Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813” “GPT-5.6 Terra actually scores worse than GPT-5.5 on many benchmarks”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly this Thursday” “Terra really struggles here even compare to Luna”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” Expensive for its results
“OpenAI is about to charge way more money for GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Terra, than if they named it GPT-5.6 and GPT-5.6-mini.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly this Thursday” “OpenAI is about to charge way more money for GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Terra”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly this Thursday” “Terra is too expensive and Luna not really fit for the task.”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” Poor pelican drawings
“something is wrong with Terra model series, most pelicans, except Max, looks bad”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “GPT-5.6” “the pelicans from Terra were quite weird all things considered”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live”
Other language models people recommend
The four most recommended other language models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus | 3,331 | 2,746 | 55% | 13 | 4 mo156 owners | — |
| OpenAI GPT | 1,205 | 987 | 55% | 13 | 6 mo47 owners | — |
| Claude Sonnet | 854 | 586 | 59% | 13 | 6 mo46 owners | — |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 828 | 223 | 79% | 8 | 1 mo24 owners | Approved |
| GPT-5.6 TerraThis page | 27 | 29 | 48% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 59 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Opus 5.5 and Chatgpt 5.6 Terra noticeably better”
“Our custom enterprise agent is currently running on 5.6-Terra and it's already very good.”
“gpt-5.6-terra works fine.”
“At least it's not as bad as GPT-5.6 Terra I suppose.”
“It was basically GPT-5.6 Terra for the price of Sol.”
“that was enough to derail and go creating issues with my context”
“I still wouldn't call it amazing though”
“Trying to convince us there is a difference between GPT-6-Sol and GPT-5.6-Terra or whatnot is ludicrous to the point of being insulting”
“I am sick and tired of the inconsistencies in GPT model families”
“it had better instincts to NOT do this stuff”
“I like GPT 5.6 terra medium”
“I barely have any errors already with 4.8 level”
“GPT-5.6 Terra has been doing a significantly better job at writing concise PR bodies and commit messages”
“Terra has not been able to do any of the technical tasks I've asked of it correctly.”
“Modern LLMs still generate pelican bike SVGs with obvious errors”
“if the token efficiency is real (which i am yet to replicate for our workflows)”
“it seems to work well, and reduce costs a lot”
“This suggests a pretty serious lack of actual understanding of how a bicycle works.”
“Terra is better than GPT 5.5”
“I simply cannot see a purpose for it in the current form”
“It just... removed the part of the page that was slow, and made it a client side request”
“the pelicans from Terra were quite weird all things considered”
“has cut our cost in half by itself, as well as improved response times by 50%”
“So it seems quite token efficient.”
“The Terra quality is usually nearly as good as Sol, but much faster and cheaper.”
“Terra is too expensive and Luna not really fit for the task.”
“I too have been using 5.3 codex as a cheap-but-good model and are switching to Terra (xhigh)”
“Terra has better latency and output speed than Sol”
“Terra really struggles here even compare to Luna”
“it's playable (even though super boring since there are no enemies)”
“similar to GPT-5.5 and a bit behind Sonnet 5”
“I like Terra High the best. That pelican is utterly yoked.”
“something is wrong with Terra model series, most pelicans, except Max, looks bad”
“Trying to pick between "Sol" and "Terra" is like asking the average person if they want the Max or the Ultra chip.”
“as good as Fable on DeepSWE while cheaper than Opus API pricing”
“OpenAI is about to charge way more money for GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Terra, than if they named it GPT-5.6 and GPT-5.6-mini.”
“it does scale down well to Terra!”
“OpenAI is about to charge way more money for GPT-5.6 Sol and GPT-5.6 Terra”
“GPT-5.6 Terra actually scores worse than GPT-5.5 on many benchmarks”
“Terra if the benchmarks are as claimed is indeed a half-price GPT 5.5 at comparable performance”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.