Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct are closely matched at 19.2 and 14.8 on the LLM Stats Score. Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is 6.7x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Meta · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 19.2 and 14.8.
In the 7 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude 3.5 Sonnet wins 6; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is roughly 6.7x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet also accepts a larger context window (200,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3.5 Sonnet
- your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 6 of 7 exact shared results
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2024
Choose Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
- cost matters — it's about 6.7x cheaper per token
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
19 reported for Claude 3.5 Sonnet · 18 for Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 6 benchmarks (DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (GSM8k).
Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 3.4x more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 16.9x more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3.5 Sonnet accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Llama 3.1 405B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 405B Instruct does not.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct uses Llama 3.1 Community License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Llama 3.1 Community License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released on 2024-10-22, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is 3 months newer than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.
Oct 22, 2024
1.9 years ago
3mo newerJul 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is available from Lambda, DeepInfra, Fireworks, Bedrock, Together, Hyperbolic, Google, Replicate.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.