Head-to-head comparison across 2benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Sonnet 5
94
Grok 4.20
70
Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Grok 4.20 only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 2M context window.
Agentic
+34.7 difference
Coding
+2.2 difference
Claude Sonnet 5
Grok 4.20
$3 / $15
$2 / $6
N/A
233 t/s
N/A
10.33s
1M
2M
Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Grok 4.20 only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 2M context window.
Claude Sonnet 5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 94 to 70. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 5's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 81.8 against 47.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 80.4% to 47.1%.
Claude Sonnet 5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $2.00 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens for Grok 4.20. That is roughly 2.5x on output cost alone. Grok 4.20 gives you the larger context window at 2M, compared with 1M for Claude Sonnet 5.
Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 94 to 70. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 80.4% and 47.1%.
Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 63.2 versus 61. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Sonnet 5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.8 versus 47.1. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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