We present results from a mode solver comparison held within the frameworkof the European COST P11 project. The structure modelled is a high-index contrast photonic wire in silicon-on- insulator subject to substrate leakage. The methods compared are both in-house developed and commercial, and range from effective index and perturbation methods, over finite-element and finite-difference codes, beam propagation methods, to film mode matching methods and plane wave expansion methods.