# Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct

> Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-vs-phi-3-mini-4k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 26.6.
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 61.9 | 27.9 |
| Rank | 10 | 328 |
| Context | 1M | — |
| Input $/M | $2 | — |
| Output $/M | $10 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#323)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1513 | 1093 |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1774 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 15.5% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 59.1% |
| MBPP+ | — | 54.2% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 14.1 (#328)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1495 | 1072 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 26.8% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 34.7% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 52.8% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 71.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 165.03 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 76.7% |
| LiveBench | — | 22.4% |
| WinoGrande | — | 70.8% |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.6 (#257)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1510 | 1111 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 15.7% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 28.5 (#246)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1540 | 1045 |
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 84.9% |
| MMLU | — | 68.8% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 64% |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 26.3 (#280)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1452 | 1021 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1522 | 1021 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1022 |
| LMArena French | — | 1076 |
| LMArena German | — | 1044 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 935 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 905 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1085 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 47.7 (#303)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1495 | 1053 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 39.1% |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 31.7 (#276)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1498 | 1044 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40)
- Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct: 27.6 (#300)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | 1073 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | 1037 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1474 | 1018 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 9.2% |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 26.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Mini 4k Instruct has 35.