Claude 3 Sonnet vs Hermes 3 70B
Claude 3 Sonnet shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Hermes 3 70B is 9.8x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Nous Research · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3 Sonnet outperforms in 4 benchmarks (ARC-C, HellaSwag, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Hermes 3 70B is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU). Claude 3 Sonnet shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
On price, Hermes 3 70B is roughly 9.8x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3 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 benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3 Sonnet
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 4 of 6 shared benchmarks
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Hermes 3 70B
- cost matters — it's about 9.8x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Claude 3 Sonnet outperforms in 4 benchmarks (ARC-C, HellaSwag, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Hermes 3 70B is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU).
Claude 3 Sonnet shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 8.6x more expensive than Hermes 3 70B ($0.35/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 10.7x more expensive than Hermes 3 70B ($1.40/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3 Sonnet is more expensive than Hermes 3 70B.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3 Sonnet accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Hermes 3 70B's 131,072 tokens. Claude 3 Sonnet can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Hermes 3 70B is limited to 16,384 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Claude 3 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Hermes 3 70B 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
Hermes 3 70B
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Hermes 3 70B uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3 Sonnet was released on 2024-02-29, while Hermes 3 70B was released on 2024-08-15.
Hermes 3 70B is 6 months newer than Claude 3 Sonnet.
Feb 29, 2024
2.5 years ago
Aug 15, 2024
2.0 years ago
5mo newerKnowledge 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 Sonnet is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Hermes 3 70B is available from DeepInfra.
Claude 3 Sonnet
Hermes 3 70B
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Sonnet and Hermes 3 70B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Sonnet vs Hermes 3 70B.