QUICK VERDICT — AUGUST 1, 2026
● Terminal-Bench 2.1: Grok 4.5 — 83.3% vs V4 Flash 82.7% (0.6 point gap)
● Price (input): V4 Flash — $0.14/M vs Grok 4.5 $2/M (14× cheaper)
● Price (output): V4 Flash — $0.28/M vs Grok 4.5 $6/M (21× cheaper)
● Open weights: V4 Flash — MIT, HuggingFace. Grok 4.5 — closed.
● Live data: Grok 4.5 — X data always. V4 Flash — knowledge cutoff only.
● Cursor integration: Grok 4.5 — all plans. V4 Flash — via OpenRouter or self-hosted.
● Hallucination (Grok 4.5): 54% per Artificial Analysis (doubled from 4.3).
The benchmark gap between V4 Flash 0731 and Grok 4.5 on Terminal-Bench is now 0.6 percentage points (83.3% vs 82.7%). The price gap is 14× on input, 21× on output. For teams that care about Terminal-Bench performance and do not need live X data or Cursor integration — V4 Flash 0731 is now the obvious cost-performance choice. The only substantive case for Grok 4.5 over V4 Flash is: you need X data access, you are a SuperGrok subscriber who wants voice + coding in one plan, or you are already on Cursor and want zero setup change.
V4 Flash 0731 for: API-first coding workloads where 14-21× cost reduction at near-identical Terminal-Bench performance is the deciding factor. Open weights, MIT license, no Grok Build privacy incident history.
Grok 4.5 for: Live X data integration, Cursor (zero setup), SuperGrok subscription that already includes voice. Validate the 54% hallucination rate (Artificial Analysis) on your tasks before production coding deployment.
Last updated August 1, 2026. Related: V4 Flash 0731 full review → · Grok 4.5 review →