I've never used Claris, but my experience is that Shimano's low end group sets work reasonably well but don't feel as nice as the more expensive stuff. That is, each step up the ladder makes the components feel more smooth and solid, arguably they even stay in tune better, but when properly adjusted the low end stuff will give you essentially the same functionality. It's mostly just the difference between "click" and "whack".

That said, I'd spend the extra money for Sora or Tiagra if I had the budget.