Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large 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?

Grok 2 accepts 128K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.

Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large better for coding?

Both Grok 2 and Sonar Large 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?

Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.

When were Grok 2 and Sonar Large released?

Grok 2 was released by xAI on 2024-08-13. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.

Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large 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?

Grok 2 accepts 128K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.

Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large better for coding?

Both Grok 2 and Sonar Large 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?

Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.

When were Grok 2 and Sonar Large released?

Grok 2 was released by xAI on 2024-08-13. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.

Grok 2 vs Sonar Large

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

UpdatedApr 30, 2026

Grok 2 specs · Sonar Large specs

Verdict by category

PriceSonar Large
Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Grok 2 does not.
Context windowGrok 2
Grok 2 accepts 128K tokens vs 127K, 1.0× 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.
ModalitiesGrok 2
Grok 2 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Sonar Large.
OpennessTie
Both are closed-weight, API-only.

On balance Grok 2 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Sonar Large's 1. Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Grok 2 does not. Grok 2 accepts 128K tokens vs 127K, 1.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Grok 2 handles text, vision while Sonar Large handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both are closed-weight, API-only.

Sonar Large is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Grok 2, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 2 is usually picked for chatbots workloads, while Sonar Large sees more deployments in research agent and rag. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

Spec	Grok 2	Sonar Large
Provider	xAI	Perplexity
Released	Aug 2024	Nov 2024
Modalities	text, vision	text
Context window	128K tokens	127K tokens
Max output	,	,
Input · 1M	Pricing not published	$1.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M	Pricing not published	$1.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff	,	,
Open weights	No	No
API available	Yes	Yes

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, vs $4.50
Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $45.00
RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $156

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.

Input tokens / dayOutput tokens / dayHorizon

Grok 2Pricing unavailable
Sonar Large$0.150

Benchmarks compared

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

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.

Pick Grok 2 if

Grok 2 fits when…

Free on X Premium
Real-time data
Multimodal needs covering vision.

Pick Sonar Large if

Sonar Large fits when…

Web-search grounded
Citation-first output
Cheap

Don't want either?

Consider Grok 4

xAI's mid-2025 flagship, top scores on Humanity's Last Exam at launch, with native real-time X integration.

See Grok 4 specs Grok 2 vs Grok 4 Sonar Large vs Grok 4

Frequently asked

Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large 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?
Grok 2 accepts 128K tokens vs 127K for Sonar Large.
Is Grok 2 or Sonar Large better for coding?
Both Grok 2 and Sonar Large 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?
Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
When were Grok 2 and Sonar Large released?
Grok 2 was released by xAI on 2024-08-13. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.

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