Model comparison
Grok 4.6 vs Sonar
Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.6 leads 61.4 to 21.1.
- Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.6.
- Grok 4.6 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Grok 4.6 | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 56.9 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2026-08-12 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 500K | 128K |
| Max output | 500K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 49 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 58.5 (#16), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSWE | 67.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 48% | — |
| CursorBench | 41.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | — |
| SciCode | 56.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1465 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,508 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 39.4 (#27), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 17.2% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,047 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 61.4 (#20), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | — |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 87.5% | — |
| CritPt | 19.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 30.5% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1447 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 34% | — |
| DTBench | 97.3% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 48.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.44 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 67.0 (#24), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 66% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 31.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 51% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1423 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 63.3 (#20), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1467 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 43.6 (#23), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 33.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 40% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 53.0 (#74), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1480 | — |
| LMArena French | 1461 | — |
| LMArena German | 1431 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1376 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1397 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1422 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1404 | — |
Instruction Following Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 75.4 (#63), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Grok 4.6: 44.5 (#66), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1454 | — |
Writing & Preference Grok 4.6 leads
Grok 4.6: 62.3 (#80), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1425 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.6 better than Sonar?
Grok 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.9 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index. Sonar costs 3.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Sonar?
Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; Grok 4.6 lists at $2 and $6.
Is Grok 4.6 or Sonar better for coding?
Grok 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 58.5 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Grok 4.6 does, with 500K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.6 and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.6 has 49 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.