Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Codestral 2508
Codestral 2508 costs 16.7x less per output token than Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($0.90 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 7 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Codestral 2508: which to pick
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a coding score, 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; Codestral 2508 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Codestral 2508 for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.90 vs $15.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 7
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 88
- Codestral 2508 only
- 1
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 20.7.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 15.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 81.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a AIME result, 88.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.4%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 1190 against 1013.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens against 256K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Codestral 2508
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, Codestral 2508 $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the number, $1.16.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 39.5 from 3 benchmarks, Codestral 2508 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 25.4 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Kagi LLM Benchmark: Claude Sonnet 4.5 57.9% against Codestral 2508 32.5%, 25.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against Codestral 2508 $0.90 per million output tokens, 16.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, Codestral 2508 256K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Bars | Codestral 2508 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 7 | 0 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index16 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1394 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 52.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 73.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 22.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 14.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| WeirdML | 47.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Cybench | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 137.8 | Only Codestral 2508 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1488 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1386 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1059 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1050 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1137 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| METR time horizons | 67.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 2.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GDPval | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 52.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| OSWorld | 62.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,839 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 73.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 82.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 13.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 54.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 10.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 17.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| EBR-bench | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| VPCT | 39.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1471 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 57.9% | 32.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 88.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 94.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 77.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 23.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 19.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MATH level 5 | 97.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1449 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 62.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 30.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1448 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1444 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 40.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1190 | 1013 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | 1017 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | 968 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1167 | 1017 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1158 | 1020 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1183 | 1007 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1115 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1205 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index22 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 36.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 84.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| DTBench | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMCA | 38.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1438 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1459 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1425 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1460 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1427 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1390 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1402 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1459 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1437 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1423 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1475 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1428 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Codestral 2508 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Mistral Codestral 2508 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | August 1, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 256K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $0.90 |
| Coding index | 39.5 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Codestral 2508 for coding?
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a coding score, 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; Codestral 2508 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Codestral 2508 for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.90 vs $15.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Codestral 2508?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Codestral 2508 costs $0.30 and $0.90. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Codestral 2508?
Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 256K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Codestral 2508 comparison based on?
7 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Codestral 2508's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.