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Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads Claude Sonnet 5 on coding, 87.3 to 57.7 on the Vibe Coding Index, at about the same output price ($10.00 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 87 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Sonnet 5 Replace Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic
Coding
57.7
Overall
63.2
Output $/M
$10.00
3
Claude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic
Coding
87.3
Overall
82.8
Output $/M
$10.00
84
vs boards won of 87 shared

Claude Sonnet 5 or Claude Sonnet 5.5: which to pick

Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.7 for Claude Sonnet 5, though on 5 benchmarks against 6.

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 for work measured by CyberBench (Vals AI) or LiveBench data analysis, where it leads.

Model AClaude Sonnet 5Anthropic57.7/1006 independent benchmarks$1.87 per solved taskModel BClaude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic87.3/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
Shared results
87
Claude Sonnet 5 only
34
Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
9
Like-for-like categories
8 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.

At a glance

Coding index
Claude Sonnet 5 57.7 from 6 benchmarks, Claude Sonnet 5.5 87.3 from 5 benchmarks.
Widest category
Math, 18.7 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 5 10.6% against Claude Sonnet 5.5 64.1%, 71.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Both cost $10.00 per million output tokens.
Context window
Both take 1M tokens.

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.

Boards won, where both have a result
CategoryClaude Sonnet 5BarsClaude Sonnet 5.5Ties
Coding117
Intelligence02
Agentic work014
Reasoning010
Math06
Knowledge06
Web design07
General222
All shared boards384
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index117
Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
LiveBench coding74.7%94.7%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena WebDev15401768Claude Sonnet 5.5
AA Coding Index71.5Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)82.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)79.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)10.6%64.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)81.3%92.4%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Code migration (Vals AI)44.4%69.8%Claude Sonnet 5.5
ProgramBench (Vals AI)0.0%6.5%Claude Sonnet 5.5
IOI (Vals AI)45.0%83.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)74.5%83.2%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI)Not measured58.3%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)13.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)46.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)70.3%59.6%Claude Sonnet 5
SciCode54.3%61.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
FrontierCode42.7%52.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
FrontierSWENot measured61.9%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
GSO-Bench37.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
WeirdML68.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
ALE-Bench1463.11819.1Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: coding14831513Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: software and IT14741504Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena WebDev: React15411817Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena WebDev: HTML15271741Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena WebDev: from an image15401737Claude Sonnet 5.5
SciCode10.7%13.8%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
AA Intelligence Index38.256.0Claude Sonnet 5.5
Epoch Capabilities Index156.9166.2Claude Sonnet 5.5
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index014
Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
AA Agentic Index43.6Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps12451305Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps1249Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps12151260Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: agents building Android apps1227Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games1225Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building games1227Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: HTML slides1168Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides1191Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets10351260Claude Sonnet 5.5
LiveBench research82.8%83.6%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LiveBench browser72.0%84.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LiveBench long agentic39.0%78.8%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SREBench (Vals AI)0.4%30.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Finance Agent (Vals AI)53.9%58.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)29.4%42.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)41.8%48.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI)Not measured10.4%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)66.3%75.7%Claude Sonnet 5.5
BioMysteryBench (Vals AI)Not measured81.1%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)5.7%47.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Vals Science IndexNot measured59.1%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
APEX-Agents54.5%75.5%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SpireClimbNot measured1.3%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
Vending-Bench 2$6,378$11,165Claude Sonnet 5.5
Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index010
Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
GPQA Diamond88.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench reasoning88.7%91.6%Claude Sonnet 5.5
MysteryMechanism (Vals AI)Not measured49.1%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)83.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)91.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)41.3%55.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)90.5%95.6%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SimpleBench60.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Chess puzzles45.0%59.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Mystery game puzzles35.0%65.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: hard prompts14611494Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: expert14891531Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14641502Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision: diagrams12931329Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision: homework13111331Claude Sonnet 5.5
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
OTIS Mock AIME94.7%100.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 365.6%88.8%Claude Sonnet 5.5
FrontierMath, tier 429.3%80.5%Claude Sonnet 5.5
ProofBench77.0%100.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: math14671497Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: mathematical work14811510Claude Sonnet 5.5
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
MMLU Pro87.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)83.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)67.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
TaxEval (Vals AI)75.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
MortgageTax (Vals AI)70.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)47.5%52.9%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SimpleQA Verified33.7%46.5%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: science14601483Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14421464Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: legal and government14541483Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: business and finance14361468Claude Sonnet 5.5
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
Design Arena: websites12741326Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: UI components12771368Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: game dev12771471Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: data viz12511392Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: 3D12611445Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: all code categories12751364Claude Sonnet 5.5
Design Arena: SVG1192Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: ASCII art1207Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench design82.0%85.0%Claude Sonnet 5.5
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index222
General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
Vals IndexNot measured70.8%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
LiveBench data analysis71.7%59.5%Claude Sonnet 5
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)66.0%67.2%Claude Sonnet 5.5
SAGE (Vals AI)48.9%51.8%Claude Sonnet 5.5
MedScribe (Vals AI)76.0%91.1%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Vals Multimodal Index68.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)82.0%82.7%Claude Sonnet 5.5
DTBench92.5%97.3%Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMCA50.0%68.3%Claude Sonnet 5.5
Surface Evolver Bench60.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Furniture assemblyNot measured75.0%Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured
LMArena Text14421473Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: instruction following14521492Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: creative writing14161467Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision12731287Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: English14501484Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: non-English14311456Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: Chinese14781535Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: German1442Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text: Japanese1422Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text: Korean1412Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text: French14631499Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: Spanish14381451Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: Russian14501454Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: Polish1425Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn14531465Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: longer queries14621495Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: writing and language14361474Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14111461Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision: English12751289Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision: Chinese1331Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Vision: reading text12881297Claude Sonnet 5.5
LMArena Vision: humor1261Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing12461242Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Document1466Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
Image generation benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Claude Sonnet 5.5Leader
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$0.0070Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.0070Fits in one request

Same cost

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5$0.130Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.130Fits in one request

Same cost

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5$0.500Fits in one request
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.500Fits in one request

Same cost

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.

Specifications of Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5
SpecificationAnthropic Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5.5
MakerAnthropicAnthropic
WeightsNo public weights listedNo public weights listed
ReleasedJune 30, 2026September 28, 2026
Context window1M1M
Input $/Mtok$2.00$2.00
Output $/Mtok$10.00$10.00
Coding index57.787.3
Independent measurements behind it65
Cost per solved task$1.87Not computable
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding?

Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.7 for Claude Sonnet 5, though on 5 benchmarks against 6. Pick Claude Sonnet 5 for work measured by CyberBench (Vals AI) or LiveBench data analysis, where it leads.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 and $10.00. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 5 only.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Claude Sonnet 5.5?

Neither: both take 1M tokens.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 comparison based on?

87 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and Claude Sonnet 5.5's on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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<p style="font:13px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:6px 0 0">Source: <a href="https://llmbenchmark.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-claude-sonnet-5-5">LLMBenchmark.ai, Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 5.5</a></p>