Sonar vs Aya Expanse 32B vs Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) comes out ahead, 36 to 33 and 30 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
PerplexitySonar
30/100- ECI—
- Price$1.00 / $1.00
- Context128K
CohereAya Expanse 32B
33/100- ECI—
- Price$0.50 / $1.50
- Context128K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
36/100- ECI—
- Price$0.50 / $1.40
- Context8K
Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is our pick
Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is the better all-round choice, scoring 36/100 against Aya Expanse 32B (33) and Sonar (30). It leads on inputs & features. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceQwen Plus Character (Japanese)Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) $0.725 · Aya Expanse 32B $0.75 · Sonar $1.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextSonar and Aya Expanse 32BSonar 128,000 · Aya Expanse 32B 128,000 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsSonar: Text · Aya Expanse 32B: Text · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text
- Self-hostingAya Expanse 32BPublishes downloadable weights (CC-BY-NC-4.0)
| Measure | Weight | Sonar | Aya Expanse 32B | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 50 | 56 | 57 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 0 | 0 | 25 |
| Context window | 20% | 24 | 24 | 0 |
| Overall | 100% | 30/100 | 33/100 | 36/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | SonarPerplexity | Aya Expanse 32BCohere | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.00 | $0.50 (best) | $0.50 (best) |
| Output | $1.00 (best) | $1.50 | $1.40 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.00 | $0.75 | $0.725 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Perplexity API | Median of 1 providers | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens (best) | 8,192 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens (best) | 4,000 tokens | 512 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | No | No | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenCC-BY-NC-4.0 | Proprietary |
| API model ID | sonar | c4ai-aya-expanse-32b | qwen-plus-character-ja |
| API providers | 6 (best) | 2 | 1 |
| Released | Jan 1, 2024 | Oct 24, 2024 | Jan 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Sep 1, 2025 | — | Apr 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Sonar$12.00
- Aya Expanse 32B$8.00
- Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Sonar, Aya Expanse 32B or Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)?
Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is the better all-round choice, scoring 36/100 against Aya Expanse 32B (33) and Sonar (30). It leads on inputs & features. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Sonar, Aya Expanse 32B or Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)?
Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is cheaper at $0.50 input / $1.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Aya Expanse 32B costs $0.50 input / $1.50 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider); Sonar costs $1.00 input / $1.00 output per million tokens (official Perplexity API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.725 per million tokens for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) versus $0.75 for Aya Expanse 32B (1× as much) and $1.00 for Sonar (1.4× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Sonar has not been scored yet, Aya Expanse 32B has not been scored yet and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Sonar, Aya Expanse 32B and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Sonar and Aya Expanse 32B does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
Sonar and Aya Expanse 32B have the largest context windows (128,000 and 128,000 tokens), against 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: Sonar up to 4,096, Aya Expanse 32B up to 4,000, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Sonar accepts text; Aya Expanse 32B accepts text; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Aya Expanse 32B publishes its weights (CC-BY-NC-4.0) and can be self-hosted; Sonar and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Aya Expanse 32B is the newest, released Oct 24, 2024. Sonar came out Jan 1, 2024; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) came out Jan 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Sonar Sep 1, 2025, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) Apr 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.
