Sonar vs Vision Small vs Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
Vision Small comes out ahead, 84 to 15 and 10 on our weighted score.
PerplexitySonar
10/100- ECI—
- Price$1.00 / $1.00
- Context128K
- Our pick
VisparkVision Small
84/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context1M
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
15/100- ECI—
- Price$0.50 / $1.40
- Context8K
Vision Small is our pick
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (15) and Sonar (10). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. 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 · Sonar $1.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Vision Small unpriced
- Longest contextVision SmallVision Small 1,000,000 · Sonar 128,000 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
- Widest inputsVision SmallSonar: Text · Vision Small: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text
- Self-hostingNo open weightsAll three are available only through APIs
| Measure | Weight | Sonar | Vision Small | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 0 | 100 | 25 |
| Context window | 40% | 24 | 60 | 0 |
| Overall | 100% | 10/100 | 84/100 | 15/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | SonarPerplexity | Vision SmallVispark | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.00 | — | $0.50 (best) |
| Output | $1.00 (best) | — | $1.40 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.00 | — | $0.725 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Perplexity API | — | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) | 8,192 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) | 512 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | Yes | No |
| Video | No | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | No |
| Tool calling | No | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | sonar | — | qwen-plus-character-ja |
| API providers | 6 (best) | — | 1 |
| Released | Jan 1, 2024 | May 15, 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
- Vision Small—
- Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Sonar, Vision Small or Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)?
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (15) and Sonar (10). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Sonar, Vision Small 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). 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 $1.00 for Sonar (1.4× as much). Vision Small has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Sonar has not been scored yet, Vision Small 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, Vision Small 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 does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
Vision Small has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 128,000 for Sonar and 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: Sonar up to 4,096, Vision Small up to 65,536, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Sonar accepts text; Vision Small accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text. Vision Small handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
No. Sonar, Vision Small and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.
Which is newer?
Vision Small is the newest, released May 15, 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.
