Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs LongCat-Flash-Lite Comparison

Comparing Claude Sonnet 4.5 and LongCat-Flash-Lite across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

Claude Sonnet 4.5 outperforms in 3 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA, Terminal-Bench), while LongCat-Flash-Lite is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sat Mar 14 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

LongCat-Flash-Lite costs less

For input processing, Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($3.00/1M tokens) is 30.0x more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Lite ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($15.00/1M tokens) is 37.5x more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Lite ($0.40/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 4.5 is more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Lite.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers

Sat Mar 14 2026 • llm-stats.com

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Input tokens$3.00

Output tokens$15.00

Best providerAnthropic

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Input tokens$0.10

Output tokens$0.40

Best providerMeituan

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Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

LongCat-Flash-Lite accepts 256,000 input tokens compared to Claude Sonnet 4.5's 200,000 tokens. LongCat-Flash-Lite can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 4.5 is limited to 64,000 tokens.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Input200,000 tokens

Output64,000 tokens

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Input256,000 tokens

Output128,000 tokens

Sat Mar 14 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Claude Sonnet 4.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Lite does not.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Text

Images

Audio

Video

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Text

Images

Audio

Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while LongCat-Flash-Lite uses MIT.

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

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Proprietary

Closed source

LongCat-Flash-Lite

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 4.5 was released on 2025-09-29, while LongCat-Flash-Lite was released on 2026-02-05.

LongCat-Flash-Lite is 4 months newer than Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Sep 29, 2025

5 months ago

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Feb 5, 2026

1 months ago

4mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-01-31, while LongCat-Flash-Lite's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Sonnet 4.5's training data extends to 2025-01-31, but cannot make a direct comparison without LongCat-Flash-Lite's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Jan 2025

LongCat-Flash-Lite

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Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is available from Anthropic. LongCat-Flash-Lite is available from Meituan. The availability of providers can affect quality of the model and reliability.