Model Comparison
Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Phi 4Which is better in 2026?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Phi 4 is 68.6x cheaper per token.
Verdict: Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Phi 4 — which is better?
Claude 3.5 Sonnet (by Anthropic) and Phi 4 (by Microsoft) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 6 benchmarks (DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MGSM, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Phi 4 is better at 1 benchmark (MATH). Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
On price, Phi 4 is roughly 68.6x 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.
Choose Claude 3.5 Sonnet if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 6 of 7 shared benchmarks
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Phi 4 if…
- cost matters — it's about 68.6x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Dec 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 6 benchmarks (DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MGSM, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Phi 4 is better at 1 benchmark (MATH).
Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 42.9x more expensive than Phi 4 ($0.07/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 107.1x more expensive than Phi 4 ($0.14/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more expensive than Phi 4.*
* 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 Phi 4's 16,000 tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Phi 4 is limited to 16,000 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Phi 4 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
Phi 4
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Phi 4 uses MIT.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
MIT
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released on 2024-10-22, while Phi 4 was released on 2024-12-12.
Phi 4 is 2 months newer than Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Oct 22, 2024
1.7 years ago
Dec 12, 2024
1.5 years ago
1mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Phi 4 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Phi 4's training data extends to 2024-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Claude 3.5 Sonnet's cutoff date.
—
Jun 2024
Provider Availability
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Phi 4 is available from DeepInfra.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Phi 4
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
View detailsAnthropic
Phi 4
View detailsMicrosoft
Detailed Comparison
Interactive Arena
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Phi 4 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
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FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Phi 4.