Model comparison
Qwen Max vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)
PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in math, where Sonar leads 33.7 to 22.3.
- Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
- Sonar accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Qwen Max | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 34.7 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2024-04-03 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 33K | 128K |
| Max output | 8K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.60 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6.40 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 23 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Sonar leads
Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 21.8% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1288 | — |
Reasoning Qwen Max leads
Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1269 | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Sonar leads
Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1275 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 67.2% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1263 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1254 | — |
| LMArena French | 1330 | — |
| LMArena German | 1254 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1205 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1142 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1274 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1290 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1262 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1288 | — |
Writing & Preference Sonar leads
Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1282 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1248 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Max better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 34.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Qwen Max or Sonar?
Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.
Is Qwen Max or Sonar better for coding?
Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Sonar does, with 128K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen Max and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Max has 23 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.