Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Sonar Pro
Updated October 21, 2026. 3 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
vs boards won of 3 shared
Decision reading
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a coding score, 62.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; Sonar Pro has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Model AGemini 3.6 FlashGoogle62.5/1004 independent benchmarks$1.49 per solved taskModel BSonar ProPerplexityNot benchmarkedNo coding benchmarkNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 3
- Gemini 3.6 Flash only
- 104
- Sonar Pro only
- 2
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Gemini 3.6 Flash leads, 34.0 against 7.6.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a AA Agentic Index result, 29.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a GPQA Diamond result, 93.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a MMLU Pro result, 89.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a Design Arena: websites result, 1301.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Gemini 3.6 Flash takes 1.05M tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 3.6 Flash
Gemini 3.6 Flash $0.0026, Sonar Pro $0.011 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has the number, $1.49.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 3.6 Flash 62.5 from 4 benchmarks, Sonar Pro not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 34.6 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run): Gemini 3.6 Flash 92.8% against Sonar Pro 57.8%, 35.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 3.6 Flash $3.75 against Sonar Pro $15.00 per million output tokens, 4.0x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 3.6 Flash takes 1.05M tokens, Sonar Pro 200K.
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 | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Bars | Sonar Pro | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 3 | 0 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1538 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| AA Coding Index | 69.2 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 88.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 79.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 30.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 35.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 73.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 45.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 27.5% | Only Sonar Pro measured |
| SciCode | 53.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| FrontierCode | 34.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| WeirdML | 56.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| ALE-Bench | 715.5 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1491 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1492 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1528 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1547 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1545 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 34.0 | 7.6 | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.5 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index16 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 29.0 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1197 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1181 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1199 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1209 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1181 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1148 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1146 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1017 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 56.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 18.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 25.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 65.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 58.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 4.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| APEX-Agents | 46.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 88.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.8% | 57.8% | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.8% | 6.6% | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 94.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| ARC-AGI | 91.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Chess puzzles | 42.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 30.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1486 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1490 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1484 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1314 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1314 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 94.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 58.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 22.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| ProofBench | 36.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1508 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1492 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 53.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Sonar Pro measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1489 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1469 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1479 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1464 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1301 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1297 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1263 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1289 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1272 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1290 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1281 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index32 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 56.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 48.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 79.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 65.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 80.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| DTBench | 95.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMCA | 44.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Furniture assembly | 23.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text | 1480 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1467 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1466 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1299 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1482 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1470 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1531 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1480 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1475 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1429 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1503 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1476 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1488 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1473 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1481 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1475 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1470 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1456 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1295 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1357 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1312 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1289 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1278 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| LMArena Document | 1456 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Sonar Pro | 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
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.0026Fits in one request
Sonar Pro$0.011Fits in one request
Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.049Fits in one request
Sonar Pro$0.195Fits in one request
Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.188Fits in one request
Sonar Pro$0.750Exceeds the context window
Gemini 3.6 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 | Google Gemini 3.6 Flash | Perplexity Sonar Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Perplexity | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | July 21, 2026 | March 7, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 200K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.75 | $3.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $3.75 | $15.00 |
| Coding index | 62.5 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.49 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Sonar Pro for coding?
Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has a coding score, 62.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; Sonar Pro has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Sonar Pro?
Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens; Sonar Pro costs $3.00 and $15.00. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3.6 Flash only.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Sonar Pro?
Gemini 3.6 Flash, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Sonar Pro comparison based on?
3 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Gemini 3.6 Flash's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Sonar Pro's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.