>At the same time, Opus seems to understand my intent way better than e.g. deepseek. I need to be much more precise with my prompts when using deepseek - it often goes in a wrong direction if I'm lazy. This results in a workflow which feels quite a lot different from Claude Code.
how much of that is Opus injecting prior conversations from memory?
Almost none of it, if you're using Claude Code. Until recently Claude only had the option of retaining memory across conversations for the desktop app.
I almost never use the desktop app, I have maybe 2-3 conversations over the last year that have nothing to do with my job. Opus (and now Fable) genuinely do seem to "understand" what you intend based off what you're explaining a lot better than other models I've tried.
Gemini gets close in some cases, but it falls over in the actual implementation sometimes. I haven't tried Kimi yet but MiMo isn't too shabby either.
I'm using Claude code + (a patched) litellm proxy + openrouter + Qwen 3.7 max/kimi k2.6/deepseek v4 pro. The only feature that doesn't work is webfetch and web search, which I've replaced with the ddg MCP. Memory, caching, and everything else works fine.
Qwen comes close to opus for planning but fable is clearly superior. Kimi and deepseek are pretty much indistinguishable from opus for coding if opus writes the plan.
I'm now testing out fable for research and planning and deepseek v4 flash for coding. I'm guessing results will be pretty similar to opus + deepseek v4 pro and costs should be lower overall.