Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.5: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 is developed by Anthropic, while Grok 4.5 comes from xAI. Claude Sonnet 5 was released in June 2026, and Grok 4.5 followed a month later in July 2026.
The two models share 4 published benchmarks. They split them evenly, 1 to 1. The widest gaps are on SWE-Bench Pro, where Grok 4.5 scores 65.0% against 63.2%; FrontierCode 1.1, where Claude Sonnet 5 scores 42.7% against 42.4%. Averaged across everything we track, Claude Sonnet 5 sits at 58.4% and Grok 4.5 at 52.9%.
On price the two are close: Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, Grok 4.5 $2 and $6. Claude Sonnet 5 takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 500K for Grok 4.5. Both accept text and images as input.
| Characteristic | Claude Sonnet 5 | Grok 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Anthropic | xAI |
| Release Date | June 30, 2026 | July 16, 2026 |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 1.0M | 500K |
| Context (output) | 64K | — |
| Input Price / 1M | $2.00 | $2.00 |
| Output Price / 1M | $10.00 | $6.00 |
| Average Score | 58.4% | 52.9% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| SWE-Bench Pro | 63.2% | 65.0% |
| FrontierCode 1.1 | 42.7% | 42.4% |
| DeepSWE 1.1 | 54.0% | 54.0% |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 12.4% | 12.4% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Grok 4.5 leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Claude Sonnet 5 — 0.6, Grok 4.5 — 0.5.
Grok 4.5 is 1.5x cheaper: input $2.00/1M vs $2.00/1M tokens.
Claude Sonnet 5 supports a larger context: 1M vs 500K tokens.
Grok 4.5 is newer: released 7/16/2026 vs 6/30/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.5?
Which model is cheaper — Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.5?
Which has a larger context window — Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.5?
The Claude Sonnet 5 and Grok 4.5 comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Claude Sonnet 5 or Grok 4.5 page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.