Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4 vs Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct

Claude Sonnet 4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 33.0 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4 Anthropic

40.8

Rank #145 Confirmed

Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct Microsoft

33.0

Rank #250 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4 scores higher in 7 categories and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct in 1 category; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Sonnet 4 leads 57.1 to 34.1.
  • Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4 and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct specifications
Claude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
ProviderAnthropicMicrosoft
Noometry Index40.833.0
Released2025-05-22—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window200K—
Max output64K—
Input $ / M tokens$3—
Output $ / M tokens$15—
Results tracked5817

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 43.5 (#88), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 32.9 (#268)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Coding14141130
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)64.9%—
Aider Polyglot61.3%—
SciCode40%—
GSO4.9%—
WeirdML46.1%—
ALE-Bench655.35—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4: 38.5 (#31), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
TheAgentCompany33.1%—
Cybench35%—
DeepResearch Bench46.6%—
OSWorld43.9%—
METR Time Horizons62%—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 22.9 (#187), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 21.7 (#214)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts13721127
ARC-AGI-25.9%—
SimpleBench45.5%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark73%—
ARC-AGI-140%—
CritPt0.3%—
EnigmaEval3.1%—
DTBench77.1%—
LMCA29%—
Epoch Capabilities Index141.69—
ForecastBench60.2—

Math Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 43.3 (#80), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 33.4 (#202)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Math13751173
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202571.1%—
Omni-MATH60.2%—
MATH Level 584.4%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.1%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 41.8 (#108), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.2 (#229)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Expert13721108
GPQA Diamond79.2%—
Humanity's Last Exam7.8%—
MMLU-Pro84.3%—
Confabulations13.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.3%—
GPQA (HELM)70.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4: 26.2 (#121), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Vision1191—
GeoBench37%—
VPCT34%—
MindCube44.8%—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 46.7 (#156), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 30.6 (#263)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Non-English13331094
LMArena Chinese13501108
LMArena French13631110
LMArena German13311101
LMArena Japanese13021042
LMArena Korean1291954
LMArena Russian13551145
LMArena Spanish13571095

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 71.7 (#145), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 57.6 (#268)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following13761113
IFEval84%—

Long Context Too close to call

Claude Sonnet 4: 33.7 (#259), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.0 (#255)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Longer Query13981120
Fiction.LiveBench46.9%—

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4 leads

Claude Sonnet 4: 57.1 (#132), Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct: 34.1 (#272)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct
LMArena Text13511138
LMArena Creative Writing13451107
LMArena Multi-Turn13761088
Short-Story Creative Writing81.4%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1483—
WildBench83.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4 better than Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 33.0 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Sonnet 4 or Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.5 versus 32.9 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4 and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4 has 58 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Medium 4k Instruct has 17.

Related comparisons

Go deeper