# Agent API vs Sonar benchmarks

The lead is widest on hard, multi-step tasks like BrowseComp and WideSearch, where the strongest preset more than doubles the best Sonar score.

## What we measured

We evaluated Agent API presets and Sonar models on the same workloads, across three benchmarks:

- **[BrowseComp](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12516)** measures agentic browsing on hard questions that require chaining many searches.
- **[DSQA (DeepSearchQA)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20975)** measures answer quality on deep-search questions.
- **[WideSearch](https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07999)** measures how completely a run gathers and fills structured results, scored by row-level F1.

Agent API presets can even match Sonar's best model, Deep Research, at a fraction of the cost.

:::callout{intent="info"}
For a benchmark built specifically for research agents that must search both wide and deep, see [WANDR](https://research.perplexity.ai/articles/wandr-benchmark-evaluating-research-agents-that-must-search-wide-and-deep).
:::

## Which preset should you use?

Results vary by use case, but every preset lands higher on the quality curve than its Sonar counterpart — and in the deep-research tier, for less.
Use the mapping below as a starting point, then confirm against your own traffic.

| Sonar Chat Completions | Agent API preset | Best for                                                                        | What improves                                                                                                                            |
| ---------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Sonar                  | `fast`           | Single-fact lookups, definitions, quick summaries.                              | More accurate than Sonar, with the clearest gains on research-style, multi-step questions.                                               |
| Sonar Pro              | `fast`           | Everyday research questions, light multi-step lookups with current information. | Much more accurate, and unlocks the real multi-step, agentic research that Sonar Pro can't reach.                                        |
| Sonar Reasoning Pro    | `low`            | Multi-hop browsing and wide aggregation across many sources.                    | Far stronger on step-by-step reasoning and on chaining evidence across several rounds of search.                                         |
| Sonar Deep Research    | `high`           | Expert-level reasoning and exhaustive source coverage.                          | The most accurate tier on demanding expert-level and deep-research work, and often at a lower per-request cost than Sonar Deep Research. |

:::callout{intent="tip"}
For state-of-the-art deep research, use the `xhigh` preset — the highest quality in the lineup, leading across the benchmarks we run.
:::

::::card-grid
:::card{title="Explore the presets" href="/guides/agent-api-presets" icon="sliders" cta="View presets"}
See what each preset configures and how to override individual settings.
:::

:::card{title="Migrate your integration" href="/guides/agent-api-migrate-from-sonar-how-to" icon="arrow-right-arrow-left" cta="Open migration guide"}
Follow the field-by-field procedure to move a Sonar integration to the Agent API.
:::
::::

## Related pages

- [Migrate from Sonar to the Agent API](./agent-api-migrate-from-sonar-overview.md)
- [How to migrate from Sonar](./agent-api-migrate-from-sonar-how-to.md)

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