# Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Sonar

> Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 37.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen3-5-397b-a17b-vs-sonar
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 44.9 to 31.3.
- Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 45.7 | 37.8 |
| Rank | 60 | 184 |
| Context | 262K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.60 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $3.60 | $1 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 41.7 (#108)
- Sonar: 35.1 (#217)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1400 | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1464 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.2 (#51)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 24.9% | — |
| τ²-bench Airline | 81.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 9.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Retail | 84.4% | — |
| τ²-bench Telecom | 97.8% | — |

## Reasoning

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.6 (#62)
- Sonar: 20.3 (#221)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 73.7% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 58.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 65.1% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1448 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 18% | — |
| DTBench | 87.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 37.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.64 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |

## Math

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.9 (#64)
- Sonar: 31.3 (#197)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 31.2% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1455 | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#53)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 86.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1461 | — |

## Multimodal

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.0 (#42)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1262 | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 54.0 (#56)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1501 | — |
| LMArena French | 1461 | — |
| LMArena German | 1447 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1427 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1382 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1443 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.2 (#73)
- Sonar: 71.5 (#146)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1424 | — |

## Long Context

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#71)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1442 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.5 (#74)
- Sonar: 52.6 (#166)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1438 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1478 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1447 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better than Sonar?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 37.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Sonar?

Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

### Is Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Sonar better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 35.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Sonar share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.