Model comparison

GPT-5.2 vs Sonar

GPT-5.2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 4.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.2 OpenAI

54.1

Rank #34 Confirmed

Sonar Perplexity

38.5

Rank #187 Confirmed

Summary

  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where GPT-5.2 leads 50.2 to 21.1.
  • Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 per million input/output tokens, against $1.75 / $14 for GPT-5.2.
  • GPT-5.2 accepts more context: 400K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

GPT-5.2 and Sonar specifications
GPT-5.2Sonar
ProviderOpenAIPerplexity
Noometry Index54.138.5
Released2025-12-112024-01-01
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window400K128K
Max output128K4K
Input $ / M tokens$1.75$1
Output $ / M tokens$14$1
Results tracked677

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.2 leads

GPT-5.2: 51.6 (#37), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
SWE-bench Verified73.8%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)72.8%—
LMArena WebDev1416—
SWE-bench Multilingual66.7%—
GSO27.4%—
WeirdML72.2%—
LiveBench Coding—35.1%
LMArena Coding1447—
ALE-Bench1,294—
AlgoTune2.05—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GPT-5.2: 40.2 (#24), Sonar: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
Terminal-Bench64.9%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard55.9%—
GDPval49.7%—
Remote Labor Index2.5%—
τ²-bench Airline83%—
τ²-bench Banking32.2%—
τ²-bench Retail81.6%—
τ²-bench Telecom89.7%—
DeepResearch Bench41.1%—
LMArena Search1207—
METR Time Horizons75.3%—
Vending-Bench 23,591—

Reasoning GPT-5.2 leads

GPT-5.2: 50.2 (#35), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
ARC-AGI-252.9%—
SimpleBench45.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark73.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)83.6%—
ARC-AGI-186.2%—
Chess Puzzles49%—
EnigmaEval10.4%—
EBR-Bench23%—
LiveBench Reasoning—46.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts1445—
Mystery Game Puzzles23%—
DTBench90.9%—
LiveBench Data Analysis—37.9%
LMCA43.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index153.45—
ForecastBench60.1—
LiveBench—46.9%

Math GPT-5.2 leads

GPT-5.2: 60.0 (#38), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)

Knowledge Not comparable

GPT-5.2: 59.3 (#32), Sonar: —

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
GPQA Diamond91.4%—
Humanity's Last Exam27.8%—
SimpleQA Verified37.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate8.4%—
LMArena Expert1445—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.2: 51.3 (#7), Sonar: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
LMArena Vision1268—
VPCT84%—
Furniture Assembly38.3%—
LMArena Document1405—

Multilingual Not comparable

GPT-5.2: 53.4 (#67), Sonar: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
LMArena Non-English1425—
LMArena Chinese1460—
LMArena French1455—
LMArena German1448—
LMArena Japanese1420—
LMArena Korean1392—
LMArena Russian1440—
LMArena Spanish1433—

Instruction Following GPT-5.2 leads

GPT-5.2: 74.7 (#89), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
LiveBench Instruction Following—76.2%
LMArena Instruction Following1417—

Long Context Not comparable

GPT-5.2: 44.0 (#78), Sonar: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
CL-bench18.2%—
LMArena Longer Query1428—

Writing & Preference GPT-5.2 leads

GPT-5.2: 66.8 (#32), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.2Sonar
LMArena Text1439—
LMArena Creative Writing1401—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1703—
LMArena Multi-Turn1458—
LiveBench Language—44.1%

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.2 better than Sonar?

GPT-5.2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 4.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.2 or Sonar?

Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; GPT-5.2 lists at $1.75 and $14.

Is GPT-5.2 or Sonar better for coding?

GPT-5.2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.6 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5.2 does, with 400K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.2 and Sonar share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.2 has 67 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.

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