Model comparison
Phi-4 vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.
Microsoft
PerplexitySummary
- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi-4 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 20.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Language: 25.6% for Phi-4 and 44.1% for Sonar.
- Phi-4 is cheaper at $0.07 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Phi-4 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Phi-4 | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2024-12-11 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
| Max output | 4K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.07 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.14 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 37 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Sonar leads
Phi-4: 34.4 (#239), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 30.7% | 35.1% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1231 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 55.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Phi-4: 22.8 (#128), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 28.8% | — |
| BALROG | 11.6% | — |
Reasoning Sonar leads
Phi-4: 17.7 (#291), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 47.8% | 46.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 45.2% | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | 41.6% | 46.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1220 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.42 | — |
Math Sonar leads
Phi-4: 20.8 (#285), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 42% | 41.6% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 13.8% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1246 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 64.9% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Phi-4: 32.6 (#209), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | — |
| Confabulations | 29.4% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1203 | — |
| MMLU | 84.8% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Phi-4: 37.2 (#237), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1197 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1212 | — |
| LMArena French | 1224 | — |
| LMArena German | 1222 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1158 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1151 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1209 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1234 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
Phi-4: 60.4 (#251), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 58.4% | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1201 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Phi-4: 36.9 (#226), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1217 | — |
Writing & Preference Sonar leads
Phi-4: 40.5 (#244), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Phi-4 | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Language | 25.6% | 44.1% |
| LMArena Text | 1217 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1182 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 62.6% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1206 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Phi-4 better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Phi-4 or Sonar?
Phi-4 is cheaper. It lists at $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is Phi-4 or Sonar better for coding?
Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 128K tokens.
How many benchmarks do Phi-4 and Sonar share?
7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi-4 has 37 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.