Model comparison
Llama 4 Maverick vs Claude Sonnet 4.6
The stark contrast in cost per million tokens is the most significant observable difference between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Llama 4 Maverick.
Meta
Llama 4 Maverick
The bigger Llama 4 — frontier quality you can self-host.
Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.6
The pragmatic default — Claude quality without Opus pricing.
Specs
| Metric | Llama 4 Maverick | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 1.0M tokens↑ | 1M tokens |
| Input $/1M tokens | $0.150↑ | $3.00 |
| Output $/1M tokens | $0.600↑ | $15.00 |
| Modalities | Text · Image | Text · Image |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| Released | Apr 2025 | — |
Capability differences
| Capability | Llama 4 Maverick | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Extended thinking | No | Yes |
| Prompt caching | No | Yes |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
How they differ
Reasoning approach
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick excels at concise reasoning balancing efficiency, though it can occasionally sacrifice depth in highly complex chains.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 emphasizes highly structured and nuanced reasoning outputs, favoring clarity and logical progression.
Coding
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick offers robust code suggestions but with comparatively less customization or contextual adaptation.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 provides detailed and adaptive code generation tailored to complex programming needs.
Context handling
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick slightly surpasses Claude with a 1,048,576-token window enabling larger-scale context management.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 supports a 1,000,000-token context for extended dialogues and broad documents.
Cost profile
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick is highly cost-efficient at $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $0.6 per 1M output tokens.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is significantly more expensive at $3.0 per 1M input tokens and $15.0 per 1M output tokens.
Vision
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick similarly supports text and image processing but at lower operational cost.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 integrates multimodal capabilities, supporting image and text processing.
Open weights
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick provides open-source model weights, enabling transparency and community-driven optimization.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is a proprietary model without access to its weights.
Llama 4 Maverick — what sets it apart
- +Llama 4 Maverick offers open-source model weights allowing for greater community contributions.
- +The lower cost profile is aimed at budget-conscious or large-scale deployments.
- +Slightly broader context handling supports marginally larger inputs in extended tasks.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 — what sets it apart
- +Claude Sonnet 4.6 prioritizes structured multimodal reasoning for specialized use cases.
- +Its cost profile aligns with premium applications demanding high-value or detailed task handling.
- +The model's proprietary approach ensures controlled usage parameters.
The significant cost difference per token is the most consequential factor when integrating these models into production systems.
Analysis synthesized from gpt-4o, llama-4-maverick, phi-4, etc.