# Qwen Plus vs Sonar

> Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 1.7× 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/qwen-plus-vs-sonar
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Sonar leads 33.7 to 23.3.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 38.5 |
| Rank | 210 | 187 |
| Context | 1M | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | $1 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
- Sonar: 35.7 (#221)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | — |

## Reasoning

- Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
- Sonar: 21.1 (#227)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | — |
| DTBench | 81.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 24% | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |

## Math

- Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
- Sonar: 33.7 (#200)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1326 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
- Sonar: 71.4 (#150)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | — |

## Long Context

- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
- Sonar: 52.6 (#167)

| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen Plus better than Sonar?

Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Sonar?

Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.

### Is Qwen Plus or Sonar better for coding?

Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Sonar share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.