LLM·Dex
Newsletter

Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Llama 4 405B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Claude 3.5 Sonnet specs · Llama 4 405B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceClaude 3.5 Sonnet

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not.

  • Context windowLlama 4 405B

    Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text, vision.

  • OpennessLlama 4 405B

    Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Claude 3.5 Sonnet is API-only.

On balance Llama 4 405B edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Claude 3.5 Sonnet's 1. Claude 3.5 Sonnet publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 405B does not. Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text, vision), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Claude 3.5 Sonnet is API-only.

Llama 4 405B is the newer of the two, released 6 months after Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is usually picked for coding llm and code review workloads, while Llama 4 405B sees more deployments in open source llm and fine tuning. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecClaude 3.5 SonnetLlama 4 405B
ProviderAnthropicMeta
ReleasedOct 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext, vision
Context window200K tokens256K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$3.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$15.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,2024-12
Open weightsNoYes (Llama 4 Community License)
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$31.50 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Claude 3.5 Sonnet$1.05
  • Llama 4 405BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Claude 3.5 SonnetLlama 4 405B
  • HumanEval92.0
Pick Claude 3.5 Sonnet if

Claude 3.5 Sonnet fits when…

  • Mature and battle-tested
  • Strong code
Pick Llama 4 405B if

Llama 4 405B fits when…

  • Strongest open-weight model at launch
  • Multimodal (text + vision)
  • Wide hosting availability
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
Don't want either?

Consider Claude Opus 4.7

Anthropic's mid-2026 flagship, ahead on SWE-bench, agent reliability, and writing quality.

See Claude Opus 4.7 specsClaude 3.5 Sonnet vs Claude Opus 4.7Llama 4 405B vs Claude Opus 4.7

Frequently asked

  • Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Llama 4 405B cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Llama 4 405B accepts 256K tokens vs 200K for Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
  • Is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or Llama 4 405B better for coding?
    Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 4 405B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Llama 4 405B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). Claude 3.5 Sonnet is API-only.
  • When were Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 4 405B released?
    Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released by Anthropic on 2024-10-22. Llama 4 405B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.