AI model comparison
Llama 4 Scout vs Sonar
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Meta
Llama 4 Scout
Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (16E) is a mixture-of-experts (MoE) language model developed by Meta, activating 17 billion parameters out of a total of 109B.
- Input / 1M
- $0.18
- Output / 1M
- $0.59
- Context
- 1.31M
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
Llama 4 Scout
3.8x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Llama 4 Scout
8.1 vs 7.7 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Llama 4 Scout
1.31M vs 127K tokens
Newer release
Llama 4 Scout
Released April 5, 2025
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Sonar7.7Coding index
SonarNot availableAgentic index
SonarNot availablePricing
Llama 4 Scout vs Sonar API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.18 | $1 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.59 | $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
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 | 1.31M tokens | 127K tokens |
| Max output | 118K 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 | April 5, 2025 | January 27, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Not supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Not supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Not supported |
| Reasoning | Not 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.
- Llama 4 Scout vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Llama 4 Scout vs gpt-oss-120b
- Llama 4 Scout vs GPT-4o-mini
- Llama 4 Scout vs Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Llama 4 Scout vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Llama 4 Scout vs GPT-4.1 Nano
- Llama 4 Scout vs Llama 4 Maverick
- Llama 4 Scout vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Llama 4 Scout vs Solar Pro 3
- Llama 4 Scout vs Hermes 3 70B Instruct
- Llama 4 Scout vs Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
- Llama 4 Scout vs Saba
- Llama 4 Scout vs Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
SonarView full model details- Sonar vs GPT-4o-mini
- Sonar vs DeepSeek V3 0324
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Sonar vs Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
- Sonar vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Sonar vs GLM 4.5V
- 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
Llama 4 Scout is 3.8x cheaper for a typical chat. Llama 4 Scout scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (8.1 vs 7.7). Llama 4 Scout has the larger context window (1.31M 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 Llama 4 Scout or Sonar cheaper?
Llama 4 Scout is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Llama 4 Scout costs $0.18 per 1M input tokens and $0.59 per 1M output tokens, while Sonar costs $1 per 1M input tokens and $1 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Llama 4 Scout or Sonar?
Llama 4 Scout supports up to 1.31M tokens of context, compared with 127K for Sonar.
Is Llama 4 Scout smarter than Sonar?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Llama 4 Scout scores 8.1 and Sonar scores 7.7, putting Llama 4 Scout ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Llama 4 Scout and Sonar at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Llama 4 Scout and Sonar answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Llama 4 Scout and Sonar at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.