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Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash

Full profiles: Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic) and Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 24 Oct 2026, Claude Fable 5 (max) leads on quality (69.3 vs 63.1 on the BenchLeader Index), but Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) costs 5.9× less, so it is the better buy unless you need the extra quality. Pick Claude Fable 5 for knowledge (81 vs 65); pick Gemini 3.5 Flash for instruction following (74 vs 63).

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingClaude Fable 574 vs 60 category score; SciCode 61.0% vs 53.9%High
Agents & tool useClaude Fable 565 vs 63 category score; τ³-Banking (AA) 38.1% vs 32.2%Medium
MathsClaude Fable 572 vs 58 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 87.0% vs 62.8%High
ReasoningClaude Fable 574 vs 61 category score; ARC-AGI-2 89.2% vs 72.1%High
KnowledgeClaude Fable 581 vs 65 category score; AA-Omniscience 43.3 vs 21.2High
Long documentsClaude Fable 566 vs 62 category score; AA-LCR 82.3% vs 73.3%Medium
Following instructionsGemini 3.5 Flash74 vs 63 category score; IFBench 76.3% vs 63.5%High
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Gemini 3.5 Flash has an Arena rating (67 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costGemini 3.5 Flash$3.38 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.126 vs $0.800–
Fastest first answerGemini 3.5 Flash14.3 s (Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)) vs 59.8 s (Claude Fable 5 (max)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Fable 5 (max) leads on quality: 69.3 vs 63.1.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, knowledge, long context, maths, reasoning.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) is stronger in instruction following, human preference, multimodal.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) is 5.9× cheaper ($3.38 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) streams 3.2× faster (222 vs 70 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Fable 5Gemini 3.5 Flash
DeveloperAnthropicGoogle
Released9 Jun 202619 May 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00$1.50 / $9.00 / $0.150

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)Leader
Reasoning73.861.3Claude Fable 5
Coding73.859.9Claude Fable 5
Agents & tools65.063.4Claude Fable 5
Maths72.458.3Claude Fable 5
Knowledge81.065.2Claude Fable 5
Instruction following63.174.3Gemini 3.5 Flash
Human preference–66.8not comparable
Multimodal–66.6not comparable
Long context66.361.6Claude Fable 5
Composite85.065.9Claude Fable 5

Where sources disagree

Across the 42 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5 leads 39, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 3. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)Leader
BenchLeader Index69.363.1Claude Fable 5
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.249.632.6Claude Fable 5
Arena Text1503†1477Claude Fable 5

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)
Blended price per 1M tokens$20.00$3.38
Input / output per 1M$10.00 / $50.00$1.50 / $9.00
Cached input per 1M$1.00$0.150
Price per task: chat reply$0.019$0.0033
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.150$0.023
Price per task: code edit$0.135$0.022
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.800$0.126
Price per task: structured extraction$0.030$0.0048
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$8.75$3.69
Output speed70 tok/s222 tok/s
Time to first answer59.8 s14.3 s
Time to a complete answer67.0 s16.6 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Fable 5 (max) cost $8.75 and Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) $3.69, because Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) used about 2.5× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Fable 5 (max) scores 69.3 and takes 60 s to its first answer token; Claude Fable 5 scores 67.1 in 4 s, Claude Fable 5 (high) scores 64.6 in 4 s. Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) scores 63.1 and takes 14 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.5 Flash (medium) scores 62.8 in 13 s, Gemini 3.5 Flash (minimal) scores 56.4 in 1 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

133 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader69.363.1
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader65.063.4
Coding scoreBenchLeader73.859.9
Composite scoreBenchLeader85.065.9
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader63.174.3
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader81.065.2
Long context scoreBenchLeader66.361.6
Maths scoreBenchLeader72.458.3
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader73.861.3
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–66.8
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–66.6
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$20.00$3.38
Output speedBenchLeader70 tok/s222 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader59.8 s14.3 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.9%92.8%
SimpleBenchSimpleBench81.9%76.7%†
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1529†1495
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.7%†–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.7%82.0%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.6%92.2%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis55.5%42.7%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.2%†92.7%
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL39.3%†25.4%
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark88.8%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize98.5%92.5%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize89.2%72.1%
CritPtArtificial Analysis28.6%13.1%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.0%45.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%32.0%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub60.3%47.1%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.4%94.7%
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.0%64.3%†
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub13.0%†–
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–79.3%
SciCodeSciCode61.0%53.9%
WeirdMLWeirdML91.9%62.6%
FrontierCodeCognition53.5%†–
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench78.4%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1551†1508
Show all 133 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.5 Flash (high)
Coding
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1624†1499
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench98.3%†–
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench86.0%78.2%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.8%†87.6%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI95.0%†78.8%
Code MigrationVals AI55.1%†26.8%
ProgramBenchVals AI2.0%†0.0%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI90.3%†48.7%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL39.0%†–
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL54.8%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL55.6%†–
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.9%†–
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.0%†58.1%†
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub69.7%36.1%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2041.3†911.0
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.0%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis42.4%6.6%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis84.6%78.7%
Startrise FrontendStartrise73.8%†–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench44.5%–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS15.8%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor63.6%†27.5%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)8.3†–
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench53.2%†–
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench92.0%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench62.2%49.0%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis62.9%40.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis98.5%95.3%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI80.5%†74.2%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL83.3%†83.6%
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL56.3%†27.7%†
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench39.7%–
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis38.1%32.2%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–40.4%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis48.8%45.0%
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis–47.0%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI56.3%†57.9%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI11.3%†2.5%
Legal Research BenchVals AI49.5%†30.8%
SkillsBenchVals AI–52.7%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI38.3%†21.6%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI–67.4%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI41.4%†6.1%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI15.7%†5.7%
Web Search IndexVals AI46.9%†37.0%
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1229†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub41.8%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub74.5%†6.7%†
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs4966.65396.4†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis54.1%42.1%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis24.0%19.8%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis51.1%50.1%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1537874
FACTS SearchGoogle–64.3%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.0%62.8%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.2%26.8%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub99.7%95.6%
ProofBenchVals AI95.0%31.0%
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench96.0%88.2%
AIME 2026MathArena–95.0%†
HMMT February 2026MathArena–95.5%†
MathArena ApexMathArena–32.3%†
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1521†1497
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub70.7%†66.2%
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.5%†–
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench86.9%†–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.5%64.9%
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis43.321.2
MMLU-ProVals AI91.5%†89.5%
LegalBenchVals AI88.6%†83.6%
CorpFinVals AI71.8%†64.7%
TaxEvalVals AI76.9%†74.4%
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL53.9%†–
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL52.6%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.7%†63.5%
MedCodeVals AI56.1%†55.8%
MedScribeVals AI88.5%†76.6%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI70.4%†59.5%
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL–50.0%
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub39.5%4.8%
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub29.8%14.0%†
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis65.3%51.4%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis36.4%37.8%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench90.7%84.6%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench75.8%75.6%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis63.5%76.3%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1508†1465
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1503†1477
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1340†1087†
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1501†1464
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1517†1480
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1522†1482
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1325†1308
LiveBench DesignLiveBench84.7%†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–84.3%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.3%†88.3%
MortgageTaxVals AI68.9%†68.1%
SAGEVals AI51.9%†49.9%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub38.6%†33.6%†
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis82.3%73.3%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1499†1453
MLCRArtificial Analysis20.6%10.0%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub163.4†154.9†
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench83.6%†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench83.0%74.6%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis49.632.6
Vals RSI IndexVals AI24.3%–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI74.2%†62.9%

Data as of 2026-10-24. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 62.5 → 63.2.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 4 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, AA-Omniscience: accuracy, AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination…).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 3 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, AA-Omniscience: accuracy, AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 score revision.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash: questions

Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.5 Flash?
Claude Fable 5 (max) leads on quality: 69.3 vs 63.1. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Fable 5 (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-24, but check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash, and will that change?
Gemini 3.5 Flash is cheaper today: $3.38 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.5 Flash for coding?
Claude Fable 5 scores higher in coding (74 vs 60 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 61.0% for Claude Fable 5 against 53.9% for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.5 Flash for agents and tool use?
Claude Fable 5 scores higher in agentic tasks (65 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 38.1% for Claude Fable 5 against 32.2% for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
Which is better for long documents?
Claude Fable 5 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 62). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Fable 5 1,000,000, Gemini 3.5 Flash 1,048,576.
Which has lower latency?
Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) answers first: 14.3 s against 59.8 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Which is faster, Claude Fable 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash?
Gemini 3.5 Flash streams faster: 222 against 70 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash?
Across the 42 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5 leads 39, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 3. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5 ahead.
When was Claude Fable 5 released?
Claude Fable 5 was released on 9 Jun 2026.