Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Phi-4 Mini

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 30× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic

54.6

Rank #29 Confirmed

Phi-4 Mini Microsoft

30.9

Rank #283 Reported

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 3 categories and Phi-4 Mini in 0 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 55.6 to 25.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 54.3% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 10.8% for Phi-4 Mini.
  • Phi-4 Mini is cheaper at $0.075 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
  • Claude Sonnet 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
  • Phi-4 Mini has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
ProviderAnthropicMicrosoft
Noometry Index54.630.9
Released2026-06-292024-12-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M128K
Max output128K4K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.075
Output $ / M tokens$10$0.30
Results tracked513

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), Phi-4 Mini: 28.1 (#317)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
SciCode54.3%10.8%
DeepSWE53.8%—
FrontierCode42.7%—
CursorBench34.1%—
LMArena WebDev1541—
GSO37.3%—
WeirdML68.8%—
LMArena Coding1483—
ALE-Bench1,463—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
APEX-Agents54.5%—
GBAEval65.3%—
LMArena Search1194—
Vending-Bench 26,378—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), Phi-4 Mini: 22.4 (#195)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
CritPt16.9%0%
SimpleBench60.6%—
NYT Connections (extended)75.1%—
Chess Puzzles35%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1461—
Mystery Game Puzzles35%—
DTBench92.5%—
LMCA50%—
Surface Evolver Bench60%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index156.21—
ForecastBench61.1—

Math Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)65.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 429.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.7%—
ProofBench77%—
LMArena Math1467—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), Phi-4 Mini: 25.3 (#262)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
GPQA Diamond90.5%—
SimpleQA Verified33.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—23.5%
LMArena Expert1490—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
LMArena Vision1274—
Blueprint-Bench 224.9%—
LMArena Document1466—

Multilingual Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
LMArena Non-English1431—
LMArena Chinese1477—
LMArena French1460—
LMArena German1440—
LMArena Japanese1422—
LMArena Korean1411—
LMArena Russian1451—
LMArena Spanish1437—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
LMArena Instruction Following1452—

Long Context Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
LMArena Longer Query1463—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), Phi-4 Mini: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Phi-4 Mini
LMArena Text1442—
LMArena Creative Writing1416—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1794—
EQ-Bench 41236—
LMArena Multi-Turn1454—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Phi-4 Mini?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 30× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi-4 Mini?

Phi-4 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Phi-4 Mini better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 28.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 5 does, with 1M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Phi-4 Mini share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 Mini has 3.

Related comparisons

Go deeper