AI model comparison
GLM 4.5V vs Sonar
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Z.ai
GLM 4.5V
GLM-4.5V is a vision-language foundation model for multimodal agent applications.
- Input / 1M
- $0.60
- Output / 1M
- $1.80
- Context
- 66K
Perplexity
Sonar
Sonar is lightweight, affordable, fast, and simple to use — now featuring citations and the ability to customize sources.
- Input / 1M
- $1
- Output / 1M
- $1
- Context
- 127K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
GLM 4.5V
1.2x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Sonar
7.7 vs 7.6 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Sonar
127K vs 66K tokens
Newer release
GLM 4.5V
Released August 11, 2025
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Sonar7.7Coding index
SonarNot availableAgentic index
SonarNot availablePricing
GLM 4.5V vs Sonar API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.60 | $1 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $1.80 | $1 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.11 | Not available |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
| Web searchPer request | Not available | $0.005 |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Sonar$2.50Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Sonar$34Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Sonar$152Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 66K tokens | 127K tokens |
| Max output | 16K tokens | 114K tokens |
| Input types | Image, Text | Image, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | August 11, 2025 | January 27, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Not supported |
| Structured outputs | Not supported | Not supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Not supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Not supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Not supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
- GLM 4.5V vs GLM 4.5 Air
- GLM 4.5V vs GPT-4.1 Mini
- GLM 4.5V vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
- GLM 4.5V vs Mistral Large 3 2512
- GLM 4.5V vs Mistral Medium 3.1
- GLM 4.5V vs Mistral Medium 3
- GLM 4.5V vs Devstral 2 2512
- GLM 4.5V vs Hermes 4 405B
- GLM 4.5V vs Nova Pro 1.0
- GLM 4.5V vs GPT-4o-mini
- GLM 4.5V vs GPT-3.5 Turbo
SonarView full model details- Sonar vs GPT-4o-mini
- Sonar vs GPT-4.1 Mini
- Sonar vs Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Sonar vs DeepSeek V3 0324
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Sonar vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs Hermes 3 405B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
- Sonar vs GPT-3.5 Turbo
Our take
GLM 4.5V is 1.2x cheaper for a typical chat. Sonar scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.7 vs 7.6). Sonar has the larger context window (127K vs 66K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is GLM 4.5V or Sonar cheaper?
GLM 4.5V is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). GLM 4.5V costs $0.60 per 1M input tokens and $1.80 per 1M output tokens, while Sonar costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, GLM 4.5V or Sonar?
Sonar supports up to 127K tokens of context, compared with 66K for GLM 4.5V.
Is GLM 4.5V smarter than Sonar?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, GLM 4.5V scores 7.6 and Sonar scores 7.7, putting Sonar ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use GLM 4.5V and Sonar at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see GLM 4.5V and Sonar answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to GLM 4.5V and Sonar at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.