Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)
In this head-to-head showdown, Perplexity: Sonar is more budget-friendly at $1/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.
First Sonnet 4 generation. Bridge between 3.5/3.7 and Sonnet 5.
Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (perplexity/sonar). Preview until a second source matches.
Single model data
No latency data
$1 / 1M output
Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.
Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.
Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.
Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy
Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness
Cost per million tokens and max context window length
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4 | Perplexity: Sonar | Advantage Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preference Elo | — | — | |
| Coding Elo | — | — | |
| LiveBench | — | — | |
| SWE-bench | — | — | |
| GPQA Diamond | — | — | |
| Time to first token | — | — | |
| Output speed | 92 tok/s | — | — |
| Input price | Perplexity: Sonar (+$2/1M) | ||
| Output price | Perplexity: Sonar (+$14/1M) | ||
| Context window | Claude Sonnet 4 (+873k) |
Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).
Perplexity: Sonar is estimated to save $280.00/month ($3,360/year).
Need SWE-bench on both sides.
Lower output list price ($1/1M).
Need TTFT on both sides.
Larger window (1M).
Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.
| Target Workload | Recommended Pick | Evaluation Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Repo / coding agents | insufficient data | Need SWE-bench on both sides. |
| High-volume chat | Perplexity: Sonar | Lower output list price ($1/1M). |
| Voice / low-latency UI | insufficient data | Need TTFT on both sides. |
| Long-document RAG | Claude Sonnet 4 | Larger window (1M). |
| Screenshots / vision | Claude Sonnet 4 | Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog. |
No comments posted on this matchup yet. Be the first to share an evaluation note!
The real PNG is generated at /compare/claude-sonnet-4-vs-sonar/opengraph-image for crawlers.
Verified head-to-head card
