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Phi-4 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.

Updated

Phi-4 specs · Sonar Large specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceSonar Large

    Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not.

  • Context windowSonar Large

    Sonar Large accepts 127K tokens vs 16K, 7.9× 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.

  • OpennessPhi-4

    Phi-4 ships open weights (MIT); Sonar Large is API-only.

On balance Sonar Large edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Phi-4's 1. Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not. Sonar Large accepts 127K tokens vs 16K, 7.9× 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), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Phi-4 ships open weights (MIT); Sonar Large is API-only.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Phi-4 is usually picked for on device and edge deployment 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

SpecPhi-4Sonar Large
ProviderMicrosoftPerplexity
ReleasedDec 2024Nov 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window16K tokens127K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$1.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$1.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (MIT)No
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, 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.

  • Phi-4Pricing 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.

Phi-4Sonar Large
  • MMLU84.8
  • HumanEval82.6
Pick Phi-4 if

Phi-4 fits when…

  • Exceptional quality at 14B parameters
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Strong on math
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (MIT).
Pick Sonar Large if

Sonar Large fits when…

  • Web-search grounded
  • Citation-first output
  • Cheap
  • Long-context tasks, handles 127K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
Don't want either?

Consider Phi-3.5 Medium

14B Phi-3.5, predecessor to Phi-4 with strong benchmark efficiency for its size.

See Phi-3.5 Medium specsPhi-4 vs Phi-3.5 MediumSonar Large vs Phi-3.5 Medium

Frequently asked

  • Is Phi-4 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?
    Sonar Large accepts 127K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
  • Is Phi-4 or Sonar Large better for coding?
    Both Phi-4 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?
    Phi-4 ships open weights (MIT). Sonar Large is API-only.
  • When were Phi-4 and Sonar Large released?
    Phi-4 was released by Microsoft on 2024-12-12. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.
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