Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Grok 4.20
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads Grok 4.20 on coding, 87.3 to 33.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Grok 4.20 costs 4.0x less per output token ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 25 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 25 shared
Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Grok 4.20: which to pick
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20.
Pick Grok 4.20 for output tokens 4.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million) and a larger context window (2M against 1M tokens).
Model AClaude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic87.3/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved taskModel BGrok 4.20xAI33.3/1002 independent benchmarks$0.72 per solved task
- Shared results
- 25
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 71
- Grok 4.20 only
- 30
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 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 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 87.3 against 33.3.
5 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 25.7.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a GPQA Diamond result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a AIME result, 96.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a MMLU Pro result, 86.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 1326 against 1229.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Vals Index result, 70.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 takes 2M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Grok 4.20
Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070, Grok 4.20 $0.0025 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has the number, $0.72.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 87.3 from 5 benchmarks, Grok 4.20 33.3 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 65.6 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 5.5 92.4% against Grok 4.20 4.1%, 88.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 against Grok 4.20 $2.50 per million output tokens, 4.0x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes 1M tokens, Grok 4.20 2M.
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 5.5 | Bars | Grok 4.20 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 3 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 7 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 5 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 25 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 64.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 92.4% | 4.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 69.8% | 0.3% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 6.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 83.2% | 44.2% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 58.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 59.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 57.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 52.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1819.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1513 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1817 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1741 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1737 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 56.0 | 25.7 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.2 | 152.1 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1306 | 1144 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1054 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1257 | 1090 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1052 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | Not measured | 1089 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | Not measured | 1180 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1244 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 78.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 30.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.1% | 28.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 42.0% | 7.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | 13.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 10.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.7% | 11.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 81.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 59.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 93.0% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SpireClimb | 1.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $11,165 | $4,663 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 91.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.0% | 34.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 89.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 65.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 65.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1531 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1331 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 75.0% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 96.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 88.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 86.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.7% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.4% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.7% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 74.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 45.4% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 94.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 52.9% | 32.2% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1468 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1326 | 1229 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1365 | 1199 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1469 | 1192 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1394 | 1217 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1452 | 1193 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1364 | 1221 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1164 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1174 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LiveBench design | 85.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 59.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 67.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | 38.2% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.1% | 63.4% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 39.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 81.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 69.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | 90.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMCA | 68.3% | 38.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 22.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CL-bench Life | Not measured | 11.9% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1492 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1467 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1287 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1484 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1456 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1535 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1454 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1495 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1289 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1297 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1242 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Grok 4.20 | 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
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.0070Fits in one request
Grok 4.20$0.0025Fits in one request
Grok 4.20 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.130Fits in one request
Grok 4.20$0.070Fits in one request
Grok 4.20 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.500Fits in one request
Grok 4.20$0.275Fits in one request
Grok 4.20 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 5.5 | SpaceXAI Grok 4.20 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | xAI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | March 31, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 2M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $1.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $2.50 |
| Coding index | 87.3 | 33.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.72 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Grok 4.20 for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20. Pick Grok 4.20 for output tokens 4.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million) and a larger context window (2M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Grok 4.20?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 costs $1.25 and $2.50. Cost per solved task is known for Grok 4.20 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Grok 4.20?
Grok 4.20, with 2M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Grok 4.20 comparison based on?
25 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5.5's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and Grok 4.20's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.