# Gemma 3 27B vs Sonar

> Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-sonar
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 7

## Summary

- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 0 categories and Sonar in 5 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Sonar leads 35.7 to 22.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LiveBench Math: 55.4% for Gemma 3 27B and 41.6% for Sonar.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Gemma 3 27B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
- Gemma 3 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 30.8 | 38.5 |
| Rank | 284 | 187 |
| Context | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $1 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.5 (#334)
- Sonar: 35.7 (#221)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | 35.1% |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.1 (#110)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.7 (#301)
- Sonar: 21.1 (#227)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | 46.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | 37.9% |
| LiveBench | 50% | 46.9% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.9 (#265)
- Sonar: 33.7 (#200)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | 41.6% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.5 (#261)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | — |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1304 | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.6 (#100)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1164 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 46.9 (#155)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1346 | — |
| LMArena French | 1368 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1349 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.6 (#160)
- Sonar: 71.4 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#293)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.5 (#168)
- Sonar: 52.6 (#167)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | 44.1% |
| LMArena Text | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1345 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Sonar?

Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Sonar?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.

### Is Gemma 3 27B or Sonar better for coding?

Sonar scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 22.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemma 3 27B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Sonar share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.