Claude Sonnet 5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Updated October 21, 2026. 76 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 5 for coding: it scores 63.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 9.2 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when output tokens cost 1.3x less, or when what matters is LMArena Text: German or LMArena Text: Polish, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 76
- Claude Sonnet 5 only
- 44
- Mistral Medium 3.5 only
- 4
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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 5
Claude Sonnet 5 scores 63.5 against 9.2.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 38.2 against 14.2.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 43.6 against 7.0.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 88.9% against 34.9%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 87.5% against 75.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 1274 against 1142.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Mistral Medium 3.5
Claude Sonnet 5 $0.0070, Mistral Medium 3.5 $0.0053 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 $1.87, Mistral Medium 3.5 $6.02.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5 63.5 from 2 benchmarks, Mistral Medium 3.5 9.2 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 34.2 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 5 81.3% against Mistral Medium 3.5 2.9%, 78.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5 $10.00 against Mistral Medium 3.5 $7.50 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 5 takes 1M tokens, Mistral Medium 3.5 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 5 | Bars | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 12 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 5 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 8 | 0 | ||
| Math | 3 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 9 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 8 | 0 | ||
| General | 27 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 74 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index120
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 74.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1540 | 1264 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| AA Coding Index | 71.5 | 46.9 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 79.6% | 66.4% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 10.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 81.3% | 2.9% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.4% | 5.1% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 45.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 74.5% | 39.0% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 70.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SciCode | 54.3% | 40.2% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 33.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 37.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| WeirdML | 68.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1463.1 | 764.0 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1483 | 1460 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1474 | 1458 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1541 | 1254 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1527 | 1308 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1540 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 38.2 | 14.2 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.9 | 141.4 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 43.6 | 7.0 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1245 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1249 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1215 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1231 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1225 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1227 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1218 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1216 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1004 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 82.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 72.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 0.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.9% | 32.1% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 29.4% | 4.5% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 41.8% | 9.1% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 66.3% | 11.2% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 5.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 94.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $6,378 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.9% | 34.9% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LiveBench reasoning | 88.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 91.1% | 74.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 41.3% | 13.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 45.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 35.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1461 | 1436 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1489 | 1432 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1464 | 1445 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1293 | 1254 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1311 | 1230 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 65.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 29.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| ProofBench | 77.0% | 9.0% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: math | 1467 | 1431 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1481 | 1440 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index90
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.5% | 75.3% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 67.0% | 58.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.6% | 68.0% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 70.0% | 28.9% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 47.5% | 33.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1460 | 1428 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1442 | 1409 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1454 | 1437 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1436 | 1426 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1274 | 1142 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1279 | 1079 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1278 | 1079 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1251 | 1120 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1261 | 1061 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1276 | 1122 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1193 | 949 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1207 | 1062 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LiveBench design | 82.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index272
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 71.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 66.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 48.9% | 37.6% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 76.0% | 67.7% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 68.8% | 34.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| IFBench | Not measured | 68.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.0% | 69.3% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| DTBench | 92.5% | 75.5% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMCA | 50.0% | 26.1% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60.0% | 26.9% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text | 1442 | 1421 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1452 | 1415 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1416 | 1374 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision | 1273 | 1222 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1450 | 1433 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1431 | 1404 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1478 | 1444 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1442 | 1453 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1422 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1412 | 1384 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1463 | 1448 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1438 | 1411 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1450 | 1395 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1425 | 1430 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1453 | 1423 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1462 | 1415 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1436 | 1384 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1411 | 1382 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1275 | 1240 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1331 | 1244 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1288 | 1233 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1261 | 1216 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1246 | 1198 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 | 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
Mistral Medium 3.5 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Mistral Medium 3.5 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Mistral Medium 3.5 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 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | June 30, 2026 | April 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $1.50 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $7.50 |
| Coding index | 63.5 | 9.2 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.87 | $6.02 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Mistral Medium 3.5 for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 5 for coding: it scores 63.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 9.2 for Mistral Medium 3.5. Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when output tokens cost 1.3x less, or when what matters is LMArena Text: German or LMArena Text: Polish, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 and $7.50. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $1.87 and Mistral Medium 3.5 $6.02.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Claude Sonnet 5, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5 vs Mistral Medium 3.5 comparison based on?
76 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Mistral Medium 3.5's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.