Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Codestral
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 30.6 on the Noometry Index. Codestral costs 8.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 1 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Codestral in 0 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 67.3 to 27.3.
- Codestral is cheaper at $0.30 / $0.90 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 256K.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 61.9 | 30.6 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2024-05-29 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 256K |
| Max output | 128K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.90 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 7 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Codestral: 27.3 (#321)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | 137.78 |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 11.1% |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1774 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 41.8% |
| LMArena Coding | 1513 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 52.5% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 73.8% |
| MBPP+ | — | 61.9% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Codestral: 19.8 (#251)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 32.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1495 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 165.03 | — |
Math Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1510 | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1540 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1452 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1522 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1495 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1498 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Codestral: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Codestral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1474 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Codestral?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 30.6 on the Noometry Index. Codestral costs 8.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Codestral?
Codestral is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Codestral better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 27.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 256K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Codestral share?
1 benchmark has published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Codestral has 7.