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Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Step3-VL-10B

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B are closely matched at 32.4 and 26.1 on the LLM Stats Score.

Anthropic · StepFun · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 32.4 and 26.1.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Step3-VL-10B wins 1; 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 Sonnet 4.5

  • you want predictable pricing at $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output

Choose Step3-VL-10B

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2026
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Core performance indexes
32.4
#98
26.1
#143
31.5
#100
25.9
#140
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 1
1 of 1
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 Sonnet 4.5
Step3-VL-10B
24.9#110
23.9#121
11.3#111
17.1#81
13.0#101
20.9#63
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

9 reported for Claude Sonnet 4.5 · 6 for Step3-VL-10B

1 shared

Claude Sonnet 4.5 outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Step3-VL-10B is better at 1 benchmark (AIME 2025).

Step3-VL-10B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sat Sep 05 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 Sonnet 4.5 specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 specifies output context (64,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Input200,000 tokens
Output64,000 tokens
StepFun
Step3-VL-10B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sat Sep 05 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Step3-VL-10B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Step3-VL-10B uses Apache 2.0.

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

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Proprietary

Closed source

Step3-VL-10B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 4.5 was released on 2025-09-29, while Step3-VL-10B was released on 2026-01-15.

Step3-VL-10B is 4 months newer than Claude Sonnet 4.5.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Sep 29, 2025

11 months ago

Step3-VL-10B

Jan 15, 2026

7 months ago

3mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-01-31, while Step3-VL-10B'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 Step3-VL-10B's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Jan 2025

Step3-VL-10B

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 4.5
✓ Preferred
Step3-VL-10B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Step3-VL-10B.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Step3-VL-10B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 32.4 and 26.1. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is made by Anthropic and Step3-VL-10B is made by StepFun. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Sonnet 4.5 compare to Step3-VL-10B in benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores MMMLU: 89.1%, AIME 2025: 87.0%, TAU-bench Retail: 86.2%, GPQA: 83.4%, MMMUval: 77.8%. Step3-VL-10B scores MMBench: 91.8%, AIME 2025: 87.7%, MathVista: 84.0%, MMMU: 78.1%, MathVision: 70.8%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 supports 200K tokens and Step3-VL-10B 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 Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (32.4 vs 26.1), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Step3-VL-10B?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is developed by Anthropic and Step3-VL-10B is developed by StepFun.