The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Claude 3 Sonnet vs Phi 4 Mini

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -3.6.

Anthropic · Microsoft · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the overall LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -3.6, ranking #297 overall.

In the 9 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude 3 Sonnet wins 8; 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 8 of 9 exact shared results

Choose Phi 4 Mini

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Feb 2025
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude 3 Sonnet
Anthropic
Phi 4 Mini
Microsoft
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
2.4
#297
-3.6
#325
Reasoning
2.3
#287
-3.7
#319
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
8 of 9
1 of 9
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

3 shared
Index
Claude 3 Sonnet
Phi 4 Mini
Math
7.8#249
2.8#276
Finance
3.6#166
1.7#175
Legal
3.6#155
1.7#163
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

11 reported for Claude 3 Sonnet · 17 for Phi 4 Mini

9 shared

Claude 3 Sonnet outperforms in 8 benchmarks (ARC-C, BIG-Bench Hard, GPQA, GSM8k, HellaSwag, MGSM, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Phi 4 Mini is better at 1 benchmark (MATH).

Claude 3 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sat Aug 29 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
Microsoft
Phi 4 Mini
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sat Aug 29 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude 3 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Phi 4 Mini 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

Phi 4 Mini

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Phi 4 Mini uses MIT.

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

Claude 3 Sonnet

Proprietary

Closed source

Phi 4 Mini

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3 Sonnet was released on 2024-02-29, while Phi 4 Mini was released on 2025-02-01.

Phi 4 Mini is 11 months newer than Claude 3 Sonnet.

Claude 3 Sonnet

Feb 29, 2024

2.5 years ago

Phi 4 Mini

Feb 1, 2025

1.6 years ago

11mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Phi 4 Mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while Claude 3 Sonnet's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Phi 4 Mini's training data extends to 2024-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Claude 3 Sonnet's cutoff date.

Claude 3 Sonnet

—

Phi 4 Mini

Jun 2024

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Sonnet and Phi 4 Mini side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude 3 Sonnet
✓ Preferred
Phi 4 Mini
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3 Sonnet vs Phi 4 Mini.

Which is better, Claude 3 Sonnet or Phi 4 Mini?

Claude 3 Sonnet leads the LLM Stats Score 2.4 to -3.6. Claude 3 Sonnet is made by Anthropic and Phi 4 Mini is made by Microsoft. 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 Phi 4 Mini in benchmarks?

Claude 3 Sonnet scores ARC-C: 93.2%, GSM8k: 92.3%, HellaSwag: 89.0%, MGSM: 83.5%, BIG-Bench Hard: 82.9%. Phi 4 Mini scores GSM8k: 88.6%, ARC-C: 83.7%, BoolQ: 81.2%, OpenBookQA: 79.2%, PIQA: 77.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude 3 Sonnet and Phi 4 Mini?

Claude 3 Sonnet supports 200K tokens and Phi 4 Mini 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 Phi 4 Mini?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (2.4 vs -3.6), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude 3 Sonnet and Phi 4 Mini?

Claude 3 Sonnet is developed by Anthropic and Phi 4 Mini is developed by Microsoft.

Related comparisons