Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
83
Gemma 4 31B
65
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 31B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 256K context window.
Coding
+24.8 difference
Knowledge
+12.4 difference
Multimodal
+0.5 difference
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Gemma 4 31B
$3 / $15
$0 / $0
44 t/s
N/A
1.48s
N/A
200K
256K
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 31B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 256K context window.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 83 to 65. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 4.6's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 66.4 against 41.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 49% to 26.5%.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Gemma 4 31B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Gemma 4 31B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 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. Gemma 4 31B gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 83 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 49% and 26.5%.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.7 versus 61.3. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 66.4 versus 41.6. Inside this category, SWE-Rebench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.4 versus 76.9. Gemma 4 31B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.
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