AI model comparison
Hermes 4 405B vs Sonar
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Nous
Hermes 4 405B
Hermes 4 is a large-scale reasoning model built on Meta-Llama-3.1-405B and released by Nous Research.
- Input / 1M
- $1
- Output / 1M
- $3
- Context
- 131K
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
Sonar
1.4x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Sonar
7.7 vs 7.5 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Hermes 4 405B
131K vs 127K tokens
Newer release
Hermes 4 405B
Released August 26, 2025
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Hermes 4 405B7.5Sonar7.7Coding index
Hermes 4 405BNot availableSonarNot availableAgentic index
Hermes 4 405BNot availableSonarNot availablePricing
Hermes 4 405B vs Sonar API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Hermes 4 405B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $1 | $1 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $3 | $1 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | Not available | 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
Hermes 4 405B$3.50Sonar$2.50Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Hermes 4 405B$42Sonar$34Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Hermes 4 405B$156Sonar$152Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Hermes 4 405B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 131K tokens | 127K tokens |
| Max output | 118K tokens | 114K tokens |
| Input types | Text | Image, Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Not available | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | Not available | Not available |
| Release date | August 26, 2025 | January 27, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Hermes 4 405B | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Not supported | Not supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Not supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Not supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Not supported | Not supported |
| Deterministic seed | Not 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.
Hermes 4 405BView full model details- Hermes 4 405B vs GPT-4.1 Mini
- Hermes 4 405B vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
- Hermes 4 405B vs Mistral Medium 3.1
- Hermes 4 405B vs Mistral Medium 3
- Hermes 4 405B vs Devstral 2 2512
- Hermes 4 405B vs GLM 4.5V
- Hermes 4 405B vs Mistral Large 2407
- Hermes 4 405B vs Nova Pro 1.0
- Hermes 4 405B vs Hermes 3 70B Instruct
- Hermes 4 405B vs Mistral Large
- Hermes 4 405B vs Mixtral 8x22B Instruct
SonarView full model details- Sonar vs GPT-4o-mini
- Sonar vs GPT-4.1 Mini
- Sonar vs DeepSeek V3 0324
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs Llama 4 Maverick
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Sonar vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs GLM 4.5V
- Sonar vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
- Sonar vs Hermes 3 70B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
- Sonar vs GPT-3.5 Turbo
Our take
Sonar is 1.4x cheaper for a typical chat. Sonar scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.7 vs 7.5). Hermes 4 405B has the larger context window (131K vs 127K 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 Hermes 4 405B or Sonar cheaper?
Sonar is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Sonar costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens, while Hermes 4 405B costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $3 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Hermes 4 405B or Sonar?
Hermes 4 405B supports up to 131K tokens of context, compared with 127K for Sonar.
Is Hermes 4 405B smarter than Sonar?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Hermes 4 405B scores 7.5 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 Hermes 4 405B and Sonar at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Hermes 4 405B and Sonar answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Hermes 4 405B and Sonar at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.