GPT-5.3 Instant vs Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

GPT-5.3 Instant is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 87 to 60. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5.3 Instant's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 78.7 against 37.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 83 to 37.

GPT-5.3 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Claude 3.5 Sonnet gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for GPT-5.3 Instant.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5.3 Instant if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 3.5 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 200K context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

82.9

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

55

86
Terminal-Bench 2.0
54
82
BrowseComp
62
80
OSWorld-Verified
51

Coding

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

78.7

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

37.8

88
HumanEval
57
76
SWE-bench Verified
36
75
LiveCodeBench
39
83
SWE-bench Pro
37

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

95

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

74.8

95
MMMU-Pro
77
95
OfficeQA Pro
72

Reasoning

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

94.2

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

67.7

96
SimpleQA
63
94
MuSR
61
97
BBH
83
92
LongBench v2
70
94
MRCRv2
70

Knowledge

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

80.8

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

50.8

99
MMLU
65
98
GPQA
65
96
SuperGPQA
63
94
OpenBookQA
61
89
MMLU-Pro
74
44
HLE
5
92
FrontierScience
59

Instruction Following

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

96

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

83

96
IFEval
83

Multilingual

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

93.4

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

80.5

96
MGSM
85
92
MMLU-ProX
78

Mathematics

GPT-5.3 Instant

GPT-5.3 Instant

97.2

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

71.2

99
AIME 2023
65
99
AIME 2024
67
98
AIME 2025
66
95
HMMT Feb 2023
61
97
HMMT Feb 2024
63
96
HMMT Feb 2025
62
96
BRUMO 2025
64
98
MATH-500
80

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant is ahead overall, 87 to 60. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 83 and 37.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.8 versus 50.8. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 78.7 versus 37.8. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.2 versus 71.2. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 94.2 versus 67.7. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.9 versus 55. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 95 versus 74.8. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 96 versus 83. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5.3 Instant or Claude 3.5 Sonnet?

GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.4 versus 80.5. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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