Model comparison
Gemma 3 4B vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 28.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
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PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in math, where Sonar leads 33.7 to 16.8.
- Gemma 3 4B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Gemma 3 4B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
- Gemma 3 4B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 4B | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Perplexity | |
| Noometry Index | 28.1 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 128K |
| Max output | 4K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.04 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 22 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemma 3 4B: 35.9 (#215), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1230 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 4B: 20.9 (#142), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 19.6% | — |
Reasoning Sonar leads
Gemma 3 4B: 13.2 (#335), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 25.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1253 | — |
| DTBench | 50.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 2.8% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 116.02 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Sonar leads
Gemma 3 4B: 16.8 (#292), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 7.5% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1239 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Gemma 3 4B: 11.8 (#299), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 23.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1223 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemma 3 4B: 42.5 (#194), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1273 | — |
| LMArena German | 1281 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1294 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
Gemma 3 4B: 65.2 (#225), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1239 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Gemma 3 4B: 38.7 (#194), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1273 | — |
Writing & Preference Sonar leads
Gemma 3 4B: 42.0 (#239), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1271 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1068 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1255 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 4B better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 28.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 4B or Sonar?
Gemma 3 4B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is Gemma 3 4B or Sonar better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (35.9 vs 35.7); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemma 3 4B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 4B and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 4B has 22 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.