Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Ling 3.0 Flash
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads Ling 3.0 Flash on coding, 39.5 to 29.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Ling 3.0 Flash costs 123.5x less per output token ($0.1215 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 13 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Ling 3.0 Flash: which to pick
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.6 for Ling 3.0 Flash.
Pick Ling 3.0 Flash for output tokens 123.5x cheaper ($0.1215 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.05 against $1.16).
- Shared results
- 13
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 82
- Ling 3.0 Flash only
- 11
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 39.5 against 29.6.
3 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 20.7 against 20.1.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Ling 3.0 Flash
Ling 3.0 Flash leads, 19.3 against 15.8.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Ling 3.0 Flash
Ling 3.0 Flash leads, 84.8% against 81.6%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a AIME result, 88.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 87.4% against 82.0%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1189.
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
Ling 3.0 Flash
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, Ling 3.0 Flash $0.0001 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Ling 3.0 Flash
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $1.16, Ling 3.0 Flash $0.05.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 39.5 from 3 benchmarks, Ling 3.0 Flash 29.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 9.2 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 4.5 22.6% against Ling 3.0 Flash 2.9%, 19.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against Ling 3.0 Flash $0.1215 per million output tokens, 123.5x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, Ling 3.0 Flash 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 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 3 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 5 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 10 | 3 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index31
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | 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 | 50.6 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 73.0% | 84.0% | Ling 3.0 Flash |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | 65.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 22.6% | 2.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 50.2% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 27.9% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 42.0% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash 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 |
| 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 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.7 | 20.1 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | 19.3 | Ling 3.0 Flash |
| 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 |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.3% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.0% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash 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 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.6% | 84.8% | Ling 3.0 Flash |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.5% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 23.7% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash 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% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | 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 | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.4% | 82.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | 79.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 62.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.0% | 61.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.3% | 70.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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% | 32.3% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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 designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1189 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1170 | 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 | 1157 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1182 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| 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 | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 50.7% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 36.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 84.5% | 80.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 73.0% | Only Ling 3.0 Flash 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 22 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Ling 3.0 Flash | 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
Ling 3.0 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Ling 3.0 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Ling 3.0 Flash 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 | inclusionAI Ling 3.0 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | inclusionAI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | July 23, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.0405 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $0.1215 |
| Coding index | 39.5 | 29.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | $0.05 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Ling 3.0 Flash for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.6 for Ling 3.0 Flash. Pick Ling 3.0 Flash for output tokens 123.5x cheaper ($0.1215 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.05 against $1.16).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Ling 3.0 Flash?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Ling 3.0 Flash costs $0.0405 and $0.1215. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $1.16 and Ling 3.0 Flash $0.05.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Ling 3.0 Flash?
Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Ling 3.0 Flash comparison based on?
13 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Ling 3.0 Flash's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.