Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Llama 3.2 3B

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 33× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

Llama 3.2 3B Meta

28.9

Rank #321 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.2 3B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 32.4.
  • Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
  • Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Llama 3.2 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
ProviderAnthropicMeta
Noometry Index61.928.9
Released2026-09-282024-09-24
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output128K118K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$10$0.33
Results tracked3218

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Coding15131098
FrontierCode52.1%—
CursorBench55.5%—
LMArena WebDev1774—
FrontierSWE61.9%—
SciCode61%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—23.4%
BigCodeBench Complete—28.3%
ALE-Bench1,819—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
APEX-Agents75.5%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—21.9%
BALROG—10.1%

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Hard Prompts14951095
NYT Connections (extended)80.5%—
CritPt31.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles65%—
Epoch Capabilities Index165.03—

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Math15101126
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)88.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 480.5%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Expert15401090
GPQA Diamond95.6%—
SimpleQA Verified46.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Llama 3.2 3B: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Vision1289—
Furniture Assembly75%—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Non-English14521019
LMArena Chinese15221017
LMArena Russian1451949
LMArena German—1056

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Instruction Following14951089

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Longer Query14981100

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Llama 3.2 3B
LMArena Text14711110
LMArena Creative Writing14651094
LMArena Multi-Turn14741105
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—595

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Llama 3.2 3B?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 28.9 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 33× 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 Llama 3.2 3B?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Llama 3.2 3B better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Llama 3.2 3B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.2 3B has 18.

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