Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
MicrosoftSummary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 27.6.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 61.9 | 29.3 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2024-04-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | — |
| Max output | 128K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | — |
| Results tracked | 32 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1513 | 1101 |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1774 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1495 | 1100 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 165.03 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1510 | 1151 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1540 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1452 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1522 | 1061 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1111 |
| LMArena French | — | 1135 |
| LMArena German | — | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 894 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1111 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1495 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1498 | 1088 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1474 | 1068 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.