Model comparison

Gemma 2 27B vs Sonar

Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 29.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 2 27B costs 1.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 7 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 2 27B

Google

29.4

Rank #312 Confirmed

Sonar

Perplexity

38.5

Rank #187 Confirmed

Summary

They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 27B scores higher in 0 categories and Sonar in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Sonar leads 33.7 to 10.7.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Reasoning: 28.1% for Gemma 2 27B and 46.3% for Sonar.
Gemma 2 27B is cheaper at $0.65 / $0.65 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
Sonar accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 8K.
Gemma 2 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemma 2 27B and Sonar specifications
	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
Provider	Google	Perplexity
Noometry Index	29.4	38.5
Released	2024-06-24	2024-01-01
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	8K	128K
Max output	2K	4K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.65	$1
Output $ / M tokens	$0.65	$1
Results tracked	34	7

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Category by category

Coding Sonar leads

Gemma 2 27B: 34.1 (#246), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LiveBench Coding	36%	35.1%
BigCodeBench Instruct	42.8%	—
LMArena Coding	1211	—
BigCodeBench Complete	52.5%	—

Reasoning Sonar leads

Gemma 2 27B: 15.3 (#315), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LiveBench Reasoning	28.1%	46.3%
LiveBench Data Analysis	47.9%	37.9%
LiveBench	38.2%	46.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1198	—
DTBench	48%	—
LMCA	7.1%	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	122.08	—

Math Sonar leads

Gemma 2 27B: 10.7 (#311), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LiveBench Math	26.5%	41.6%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	1.4%	—
LMArena Math	1212	—
MATH Level 5	27.9%	—

Knowledge Not comparable

Gemma 2 27B: 19.0 (#280), Sonar: —

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
GPQA Diamond	36.5%	—
Confabulations	27.1%	—
LMArena Expert	1172	—
MMLU	75.7%	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 2 27B: 38.6 (#226), Sonar: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LMArena Non-English	1217	—
LMArena Chinese	1221	—
LMArena French	1247	—
LMArena German	1209	—
LMArena Japanese	1175	—
LMArena Korean	1174	—
LMArena Russian	1234	—
LMArena Spanish	1228	—

Instruction Following Sonar leads

Gemma 2 27B: 60.5 (#249), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LiveBench Instruction Following	58.1%	76.2%
LMArena Instruction Following	1206	—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemma 2 27B: 37.3 (#218), Sonar: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LMArena Longer Query	1231	—

Writing & Preference Sonar leads

Gemma 2 27B: 44.2 (#225), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 2 27B	Sonar
LiveBench Language	32.6%	44.1%
LMArena Text	1231	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1241	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1224	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 2 27B better than Sonar?

Which is cheaper, Gemma 2 27B or Sonar?

Gemma 2 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.65 per million input tokens and $0.65 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.

Is Gemma 2 27B or Sonar better for coding?

Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Sonar does, with 128K tokens against 8K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 27B and Sonar share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 27B has 34 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.