Anthropic vs X.ai

Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Grok 4.3

Compare Claude 4.6 Sonnet and Grok 4.3 across pricing, context window, capabilities, benchmarks, and API access to choose the better fit for long-context workloads versus long-context workloads.

Grok 4.3
Apr 30, 2026 1M context 2,000,000 tokens output

Overview Comparison

Structured side-by-side differences for the highest-signal model metadata.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Grok 4.3

Provider

The entity that currently provides this model.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet Anthropic
Grok 4.3 X.ai

Model ID

The routed model identifier exposed by upstream providers.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6
Grok 4.3 x-ai/grok-4.3

Input Context Window

The number of tokens supported by the input context window.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet 1M tokens
Grok 4.3 1M tokens

Maximum Output Tokens

The number of tokens that can be generated by the model in a single request.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet 128,000 tokens tokens
Grok 4.3 2,000,000 tokens tokens

Open Source

Whether the model's code is available for public use.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet No
Grok 4.3 No

Release Date

When the model was first released.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet Feb 17, 2026
Grok 4.3 Apr 30, 2026

Knowledge Cut-off Date

When the model's knowledge was last updated.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet February 2026
Grok 4.3 Unknown

API Providers

The providers that currently expose the model through an API.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet
OpenRouter
Grok 4.3
OpenRouter

Modalities

Types of data each model can process or return.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Text Image File Code
Grok 4.3
Text Image

Pricing Comparison

Compare current token pricing before you choose the cheaper or more scalable API option.

Claude 4.6 Sonnet Anthropic
Input price $3.00 Per 1M tokens
Output price $15.00 Per 1M tokens
Grok 4.3 X.ai
Input price $1.25 Per 1M tokens
Output price $2.50 Per 1M tokens

Capabilities Comparison

See where each model overlaps, where they differ, and which one supports more of the features you care about.

Capability
Claude 4.6 Sonnet
Grok 4.3
1M Token Context Accepts up to 1 million tokens in a single request (beta), enabling reasoning across entire codebases, lengthy contracts, or dozens of documents at once.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Advanced Coding Supports the full software development lifecycle including planning, implementation, debugging, and large-scale refactors across multiple files.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Agentic Workflows Handles long-running, multi-step autonomous tasks with improved instruction following, tool selection, and error correction over extended sessions.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Computer Use Controls browsers and desktop software to navigate complex spreadsheets, fill multi-step web forms, and automate workflows that previously required human intervention.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
File
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Image
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3 Supported
MCP Integration Compatible with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, enabling connection to external data sources and services through a standardized interface.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Reasoning Applies multi-step reasoning to complex professional tasks including financial analysis, research synthesis, and frontend code generation.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3 Supported
Safety Guardrails Includes Anthropic's safety evaluations with documented resistance to prompt injection attacks, rated as safe as or safer than other recent Claude models.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Structured Output
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3 Supported
Text
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3 Supported
Tool Use Supports structured tool calling, allowing the model to invoke external functions and APIs as part of a reasoning or task-completion workflow.
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3
Tools
Claude 4.6 Sonnet Supported
Grok 4.3 Supported

Benchmark Comparison

Shared benchmark rows make it easier to compare performance where both models have published scores.

Benchmark Claude 4.6 Sonnet Grok 4.3
ARC-AGI-2
Novel abstract reasoning and pattern recognition
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 58.3%
Grok 4.3 N/A
Finance Agent
Financial analysis and decision-making tasks
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 63.3%
Grok 4.3 N/A
GPQA Diamond
PhD-level science questions (biology, physics, chemistry)
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 79.9%
Grok 4.3 N/A
HLE
Questions that challenge frontier models across many domains
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 13.2%
Grok 4.3 N/A
IFBench
Instruction following accuracy
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 41.2%
Grok 4.3 N/A
Long Context Reasoning
Reasoning across long documents and contexts
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 57.7%
Grok 4.3 N/A
MATH-500
Undergraduate and competition-level math problems
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 97.8%
Grok 4.3 N/A
MCP-Atlas Tool Use
Structured tool use via Model Context Protocol
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 61.3%
Grok 4.3 N/A
MMLU-Pro
Expert knowledge across 14 academic disciplines
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 79.1%
Grok 4.3 N/A
MMMB
Multilingual and multimodal understanding
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 76.1%
Grok 4.3 N/A
OSWorld-Verified
Autonomous computer use and desktop tasks
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 72.5%
Grok 4.3 N/A
SciCode
Scientific research coding and numerical methods
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 46.9%
Grok 4.3 N/A
SWE-bench Verified
Real GitHub issues requiring multi-file code fixes
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 79.6%
Grok 4.3 N/A
Terminal-Bench 2.0
Agentic coding and terminal command tasks
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 59.1%
Grok 4.3 N/A
TerminalBench Hard
Agentic coding and terminal command tasks
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 46.2%
Grok 4.3 N/A
τ²-Bench
Agentic tool use in realistic scenarios
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 79.5%
Grok 4.3 N/A
τ²-bench Retail
Agentic tool use in retail scenarios
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 91.7%
Grok 4.3 N/A
τ²-bench Telecom
Agentic tool use in telecom scenarios
Claude 4.6 Sonnet 97.9%
Grok 4.3 N/A
Community discussion

What Reddit discussions say about Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Grok 4.3

Claude 4.6 Sonnet and Grok 4.3 are both surfacing live Reddit discussions, giving this comparison a community layer beyond specs and benchmarks.

The most visible threads right now are clustered in r/singularity, r/LoveGrok, r/grok.

Grok 4.3 r/aicuriosity 120 upvotes 22 comments May 1, 2026
Grok 4.3 Just Took The Top Spot on Instruction Following Leaderboard

xAI has released Grok 4.3 and it has immediately claimed the number one position on the IFBench leaderboard for instruction following.

According to Artificial Analysis the new model achieved an impressive 81 percent score beating GPT 5.5 Gemini 3.1 Pro Claude Opus 4.7 and all other major competitors.

The biggest improvement here is that Grok now follows user instructions much more accurately and consistently. It sticks to exactly what you ask without adding extra stuff or ignoring parts of the request.

This is exactly the kind of reliability a lot of people have been looking for in AI tools. A clean and focused update from xAI that makes Grok feel more dependable for daily use.

Open Reddit thread
Claude 4.6 Sonnet r/DeepSeek 113 upvotes 40 comments April 29, 2026
Deepseek V4 pro reminds me of Claude 4.6 sonnet

Honestly, it isn't a terrible model.

I would put it on par with maybe Claude 4.6 sonnet.

For creativity, as I usually need that for writing. Its pretty excellent. Just not the feeling of a model like opus would.

I don't really use any other model except Kimi K2.6, as that's the best one so far.

For coding, it's pretty good too, though I've only done some html stuff with it.

And the fact it's in preview, just only means there's a hole lot more this model can do! Once it gets better at roleplay (still a bit generic, better than deepseek V3.2 in some way imo). It would be my daily driver most definitely.

Open Reddit thread
View more discussions →

Which model should you choose?

Use the summary below to decide which model better fits your workflow, budget, and feature requirements.

Best fit for

Claude 4.6 Sonnet

Claude 4.6 Sonnet is a stronger fit for long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.

Best fit for

Grok 4.3

Grok 4.3 is a stronger fit for long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.

Verdict

Choose Claude 4.6 Sonnet if you prioritize long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows. Choose Grok 4.3 if your workflow depends more on long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Grok 4.3

What is the main difference between Claude 4.6 Sonnet and Grok 4.3?

Claude 4.6 Sonnet leans toward long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows, while Grok 4.3 is better suited to long-context workloads, reasoning-heavy tasks, tool-augmented workflows.

Which model is cheaper: Claude 4.6 Sonnet or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 starts lower on input pricing at $1.2500 per 1M input tokens, compared with $3.0000 for Claude 4.6 Sonnet.

Which model has the larger context window: Claude 4.6 Sonnet or Grok 4.3?

Claude 4.6 Sonnet is listed with a context window of 1M, while Grok 4.3 is listed with 1M.

How should I evaluate Claude 4.6 Sonnet vs Grok 4.3 for my use case?

This comparison currently includes 18 shared benchmark rows, helping you compare practical performance across overlapping evaluations.