# Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 25.4.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 10 | 310 |
| Context | 1M | — |
| Input $/M | $2 | — |
| Output $/M | $10 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1102 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1100 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1151 |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1067 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1061 |
| LMArena French | — | 1134 |
| LMArena German | — | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1087 |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 5.5: —
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1068 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.