Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Hy4 preview
Hy4 preview leads Claude Sonnet 4.5 on coding, 44.3 to 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Hy4 preview costs 6.0x less per output token ($2.501 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 8 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Hy4 preview: which to pick
Pick Hy4 preview for coding: it scores 44.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 39.5 for Claude Sonnet 4.5.
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for work measured by LegalBench (Vals AI) or MedCode (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 8
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 87
- Hy4 preview only
- 16
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 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
Hy4 preview
Hy4 preview scores 44.3 against 39.5.
3 benchmarks behind each score
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
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1189.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Hy4 preview has a Vals Index result, 53.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Hy4 preview
Hy4 preview takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Hy4 preview
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, Hy4 preview $0.0021 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, Hy4 preview 44.3 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 56.0 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ProofBench: Claude Sonnet 4.5 19.0% against Hy4 preview 75.0%, 56.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against Hy4 preview $2.501 per million output tokens, 6.0x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, Hy4 preview 1.05M.
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 | Hy4 preview | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 4 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 3 | 5 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index04
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | 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 | 1631 | Hy4 preview |
| 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 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 8.1% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 22.6% | 77.5% | Hy4 preview |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.4% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.3% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.1% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.4% | Only Hy4 preview 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 | 1653 | Hy4 preview |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | 1620 | Hy4 preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | 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 index19 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| 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 |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.3% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.1% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.6% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 45.2% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 8.8% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.1% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.3% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 1.4% | Only Hy4 preview 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 22 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | 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% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | 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% | 75.0% | Hy4 preview |
| 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 index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Hy4 preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | 83.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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% | 43.3% | 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 | Hy4 preview | 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 | Hy4 preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 53.2% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.6% | Only Hy4 preview measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 36.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 84.5% | 83.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| 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 | Hy4 preview | 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
Hy4 preview costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Hy4 preview costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Hy4 preview 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 | Tencent Hy4 preview |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Tencent |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | August 28, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.834 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $2.501 |
| Coding index | 39.5 | 44.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Hy4 preview for coding?
Pick Hy4 preview for coding: it scores 44.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 39.5 for Claude Sonnet 4.5. Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for work measured by LegalBench (Vals AI) or MedCode (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Hy4 preview?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Hy4 preview costs $0.834 and $2.501. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Hy4 preview?
Hy4 preview, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Hy4 preview comparison based on?
8 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 Hy4 preview's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.