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Claude 3 Sonnet vs Gemma 2 9B

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -4.4.

Anthropic · Google · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the overall LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -4.4, ranking #297 overall.

In the 6 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude 3 Sonnet wins 6; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude 3 Sonnet

  • overall performance matters — it scores 2.4 and ranks #297 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 6 of 6 exact shared results

Choose Gemma 2 9B

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2024
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Core performance indexes
2.4
#297
-4.4
#331
2.3
#287
-4.7
#324
-1.4
#230
-11.0
#246
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
6 of 6
0 of 6
Input price
$3.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$15.00 / M
— / M
Context window
200,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Claude 3 Sonnet
Gemma 2 9B
7.8#249
-3.3#298
3.6#155
0.5#168
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

11 reported for Claude 3 Sonnet · 16 for Gemma 2 9B

6 shared

Claude 3 Sonnet outperforms in 6 benchmarks (ARC-C, GSM8k, HellaSwag, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU), while Gemma 2 9B is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude 3 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sun Aug 30 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude 3 Sonnet specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only Claude 3 Sonnet specifies output context (200,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude 3 Sonnet
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
Google
Gemma 2 9B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sun Aug 30 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude 3 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Gemma 2 9B does not.

Claude 3 Sonnet can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude 3 Sonnet

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Gemma 2 9B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Gemma 2 9B uses Gemma.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude 3 Sonnet

Proprietary

Closed source

Gemma 2 9B

Gemma

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3 Sonnet was released on 2024-02-29, while Gemma 2 9B was released on 2024-06-27.

Gemma 2 9B is 4 months newer than Claude 3 Sonnet.

Claude 3 Sonnet

Feb 29, 2024

2.5 years ago

Gemma 2 9B

Jun 27, 2024

2.2 years ago

3mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Sonnet and Gemma 2 9B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude 3 Sonnet
✓ Preferred
Gemma 2 9B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3 Sonnet vs Gemma 2 9B.

Which is better, Claude 3 Sonnet or Gemma 2 9B?

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -4.4. Claude 3 Sonnet is made by Anthropic and Gemma 2 9B is made by Google. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude 3 Sonnet compare to Gemma 2 9B in benchmarks?

Claude 3 Sonnet scores ARC-C: 93.2%, GSM8k: 92.3%, HellaSwag: 89.0%, MGSM: 83.5%, BIG-Bench Hard: 82.9%. Gemma 2 9B scores ARC-E: 88.0%, BoolQ: 84.2%, HellaSwag: 81.9%, PIQA: 81.7%, Winogrande: 80.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude 3 Sonnet and Gemma 2 9B?

Claude 3 Sonnet supports 200K tokens and Gemma 2 9B supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude 3 Sonnet and Gemma 2 9B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (2.4 vs -4.4), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Gemma). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude 3 Sonnet and Gemma 2 9B?

Claude 3 Sonnet is developed by Anthropic and Gemma 2 9B is developed by Google.