Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B
Updated October 21, 2026. 36 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.8 for Gemma 4 26B A4B.
Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B when output tokens cost 58.8x less, or when what matters is OTIS Mock AIME or LMArena Text: math, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 36
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 56
- Gemma 4 26B A4B only
- 18
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 59.1 against 22.8.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 20.7 against 16.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 15.8 against 2.9.
Same board, both measured
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
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1190.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemma 4 26B A4B
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, Gemma 4 26B A4B $0.0002 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 59.1 from 2 benchmarks, Gemma 4 26B A4B 22.8 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 12.9 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- AA Agentic Index: Claude Sonnet 4.5 15.8 against Gemma 4 26B A4B 2.9, 12.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against Gemma 4 26B A4B $0.255 per million output tokens, 58.8x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, Gemma 4 26B A4B 262K.
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 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 0 | ||
| Math | 0 | 3 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 1 | ||
| General | 13 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 30 | 6 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index70
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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 | 1360 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| AA Coding Index | 52.1 | 39.3 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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 |
| SciCode | Not measured | 40.0% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 25.0% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B 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% | 35.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Cybench | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 927.2 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1488 | 1446 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1473 | 1454 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1386 | 1351 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | 1362 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.7 | 16.7 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | 141.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | 2.9 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1060 | 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 |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 43.6% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B 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 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.2% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 19.3% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 82.3% | 73.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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 | 1438 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1483 | 1447 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1471 | 1448 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1264 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1293 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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% | 82.2% | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| 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 | 1470 | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1462 | 1475 | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index31
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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 | 1446 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1444 | 1428 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1451 | 1457 | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1440 | 1429 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1190 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1167 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1158 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1183 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1114 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1204 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index132
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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 |
| IFBench | Not measured | 72.4% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 65.7% | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| DTBench | 83.2% | 74.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMCA | 38.8% | 29.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text | 1438 | 1434 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1459 | 1420 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1442 | 1400 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1260 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1450 | 1444 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1425 | 1421 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1460 | 1495 | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| 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 | 1460 | Gemma 4 26B A4B |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1458 | 1415 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1437 | 1434 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1423 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | 1441 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1475 | 1427 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1442 | 1405 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1428 | 1403 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1256 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1312 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1268 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1272 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1297 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1191 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1256 | Only Gemma 4 26B A4B measured |
| LMArena Document | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Gemma 4 26B A4B | 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
Gemma 4 26B A4B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemma 4 26B A4B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemma 4 26B A4B 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 | Google Gemma 4 26B A4B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | April 3, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.0765 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $0.255 |
| Coding index | 59.1 | 22.8 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Gemma 4 26B A4B for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.8 for Gemma 4 26B A4B. Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B when output tokens cost 58.8x less, or when what matters is OTIS Mock AIME or LMArena Text: math, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemma 4 26B A4B?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Gemma 4 26B A4B costs $0.0765 and $0.255. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemma 4 26B A4B?
Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B comparison based on?
36 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Gemma 4 26B A4B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.