Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemma 3 12B
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 53× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 9 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.2 to 22.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 94.7% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
- Claude Sonnet 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Noometry Index | 54.6 | 32.1 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2025-03-12 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 128K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 54.3% | 17.4% |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | 1281 |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1541 | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 30.4% |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 16.9% | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | 1309 |
| DTBench | 92.5% | 48.8% |
| LMCA | 50% | 4.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.21 | 123.5 |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | 16.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1467 | 1307 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | — |
| ProofBench | 77% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | 39.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1490 | 1248 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.4% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), Gemma 3 12B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1274 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
| MindCube | — | 46.7% |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | 1318 |
| LMArena German | 1440 | 1370 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1335 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | — |
| LMArena French | 1460 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1437 | — |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1452 | 1299 |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | 1317 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1442 | 1334 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | 1126 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | 1334 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Gemma 3 12B?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 53× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemma 3 12B?
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemma 3 12B share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.