Model comparison
DeepSeek-V3 vs Sonar
DeepSeek-V3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 37.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.
DeepSeek
PerplexitySummary
- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 3 categories and Sonar in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where DeepSeek-V3 leads 41.9 to 35.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Coding: 70.9% for DeepSeek-V3 and 35.1% for Sonar.
- DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper at $0.24 / $0.90 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- DeepSeek-V3 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 128K.
- DeepSeek-V3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 39.2 | 37.8 |
| Released | 2024-12-26 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 164K | 128K |
| Max output | 164K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.24 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.90 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 60 | 7 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding DeepSeek-V3 leads
DeepSeek-V3: 41.9 (#99), Sonar: 35.1 (#217)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 70.9% | 35.1% |
| Aider Polyglot | 55.1% | — |
| SciCode | 35.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 36.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 50% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1368 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 62.2% | — |
| HumanEval+ | 86.6% | — |
| MBPP+ | 73% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: —, Sonar: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| METR Time Horizons | 49.6% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
DeepSeek-V3: 20.0 (#226), Sonar: 20.3 (#221)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 65.8% | 46.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 60.9% | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | 66.9% | 46.9% |
| SimpleBench | 27.2% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 52.3% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1365 | — |
| DTBench | 64.8% | — |
| LMCA | 15.5% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 87.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.95 | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.1 | — |
| HellaSwag | 88.9% | — |
| PIQA | 84.7% | — |
| WinoGrande | 85.2% | — |
Math Too close to call
DeepSeek-V3: 30.4 (#208), Sonar: 31.3 (#197)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 73.5% | 41.6% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 37.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 40.3% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1373 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 75.5% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#147), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 67.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 72.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 26.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 53.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1352 | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 95.3% | — |
| MMLU | 87.2% | — |
| TriviaQA | 82.9% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 48.8 (#138), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1390 | — |
| LMArena French | 1386 | — |
| LMArena German | 1374 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1333 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1321 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1372 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1358 | — |
Instruction Following DeepSeek-V3 leads
DeepSeek-V3: 73.0 (#125), Sonar: 71.5 (#146)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 81.5% | 76.2% |
| IFEval | 83.2% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1345 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#248), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 50% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1353 | — |
Writing & Preference DeepSeek-V3 leads
DeepSeek-V3: 57.6 (#124), Sonar: 52.6 (#166)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Language | 49.1% | 44.1% |
| LMArena Text | 1375 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1364 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 77% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1472 | — |
| WildBench | 83% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Sonar?
DeepSeek-V3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 37.8 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Sonar?
DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.24 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is DeepSeek-V3 or Sonar better for coding?
DeepSeek-V3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.9 versus 35.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
DeepSeek-V3 does, with 164K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Sonar share?
7 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.