# Claude Sonnet 5 vs LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 5 and LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-longcat-flash-lite-sparse
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Claude Sonnet 5 leads overall 69.84 to 0.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.0 in Agentic, with scores of 80.4% and 33.7%.
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Meituan |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 69.84 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 24 | 17 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $2.00 / $10.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 65.8 (Supported · #11/152)
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 14.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | 33.7% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| BrowseComp | 84.7% | 48.6% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| HLE w/ tools | 57.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 81.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 74.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VITA-Bench | Coming soon | 21.7% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 45.6% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 64 (Supported · #13/151)
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 85.2% | 68.2% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 63.2% | 40.6% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SWE Multilingual | 78.3% | 59.3% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SWE Multimodal | 28.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | 33.7% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 42.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench32 | 61.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench CII v1 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.5 (#13/48)
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 88.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 77% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.4 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 66.6 (Supported · #20/183)
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| HLE | 57.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 43.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE-Verified | 31.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LABBench2 | 80.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU | Coming soon | 85.3% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 79.2% | Coming soon |
| CMMLU | Coming soon | 84.3% | Coming soon |
| C-Eval | Coming soon | 85.8% | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 69.5% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MATH-500 | Coming soon | 95.8% | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 65.7% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 40.5% | Coming soon |
| IMOAnswerBench | Coming soon | 49.4% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 5 or LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 5 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 5 currently has 24 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse cover on BenchLM?

LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse currently has 17 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-claude-sonnet-5)
- [LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-longcat-flash-lite-sparse)
- [Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-longcat-flash-lite-sparse)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 5 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-5)
- [LongCat-Flash-Lite-Sparse profile](/models/longcat-flash-lite-sparse)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)