BenchLeader

Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

Full profiles: Claude Fable 5 (Anthropic) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 24 Oct 2026, Claude Fable 5 (max) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (69.3 vs 64.4 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±5.8 margin of error), and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) costs 13× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)'s current price runs until 31 Dec 2026; from 1 Jan 2027 Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) costs 6.7× less ($3.00 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).

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 64 category score; SciCode 61.0% vs 56.6%High
Agents & tool useClaude Fable 565 vs 51 category score; Terminal-Bench 44.5% vs 19.1%High
MathsClaude Fable 572 vs 62 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 87.0% vs 68.4%High
ReasoningClaude Fable 574 vs 68 category score; CritPt 28.6% vs 18.3%Medium
KnowledgeClaude Fable 581 vs 68 category score; AA-Omniscience 43.3 vs 29.6High
Long documentsEither66 vs 66 category score; AA-LCR 82.3% vs 81.3%Either
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Gemini 3.8 Flash has an Arena rating (69 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costGemini 3.8 Flash$1.50 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.060 vs $0.800; from 1 Jan 2027: $3.00 vs $20.00–
Fastest first answerGemini 3.8 Flash25.1 s (Gemini 3.8 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) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (69.3 vs 64.4, within the ±5.8 margin).
  • Claude Fable 5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, instruction following, knowledge, long context, maths, reasoning.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) is stronger in human preference, multimodal.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) is 13× cheaper ($1.50 vs $20.00 per 1M blended) until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 vs $20.00 from 1 Jan 2027.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) streams 2.0× faster (141 vs 70 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Fable 5Gemini 3.8 Flash
DeveloperAnthropicGoogle
Released9 Jun 20262 Sept 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00$0.750 / $3.75 / $0.075
Announced price changeNone announced$1.50 / $7.50 from 1 Jan 2027

Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: ai.google.dev pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.

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 3.8 Flash (high)Leader
Reasoning73.868.2Claude Fable 5
Coding73.863.5Claude Fable 5
Agents & tools65.050.9Claude Fable 5
Maths72.462.4Claude Fable 5
Knowledge81.068.4Claude Fable 5
Instruction following63.1–not comparable
Human preference–69.1not comparable
Multimodal–67.7not comparable
Long context66.365.7level
Composite85.075.3Claude Fable 5

Where sources disagree

Across the 38 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5 leads 27, Gemini 3.8 Flash leads 9 and 2 are tied. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)Leader
BenchLeader Index69.364.4neck and neck
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.249.640.9Claude Fable 5
Arena Text1503†1496Claude 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 3.8 Flash (high)
Blended price per 1M tokens, until 31 Dec 2026$20.00$1.50
Input / output per 1M$10.00 / $50.00$0.750 / $3.75
Blended price per 1M from 1 Jan 2027$20.00$3.00
Input / output per 1M from 1 Jan 2027$10.00 / $50.00$1.50 / $7.50
Cached input per 1M$1.00$0.075
Price per task: chat reply$0.019$0.0014
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.150$0.011
Price per task: code edit$0.135$0.010
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.800$0.060
Price per task: structured extraction$0.030$0.0023
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$8.75$1.24
Output speed70 tok/s141 tok/s
Time to first answer59.8 s25.1 s
Time to a complete answer67.0 s28.7 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Fable 5 (max) cost $8.75 and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) $1.24, because Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) used about 1.9× 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 3.8 Flash (high) scores 64.4 and takes 25 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.8 Flash (medium) scores 64.4 in 3 s, Gemini 3.8 Flash (low) scores 61.0 in 3 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

157 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 3.8 Flash (high)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader69.364.4
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader65.050.9
Coding scoreBenchLeader73.863.5
Composite scoreBenchLeader85.075.3
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader63.1–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader81.068.4
Long context scoreBenchLeader66.365.7
Maths scoreBenchLeader72.462.4
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader73.868.2
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–69.1
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–67.7
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$20.00$1.50
Output speedBenchLeader70 tok/s141 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader59.8 s25.1 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.9%95.4%
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS–44.5%†
SimpleBenchSimpleBench81.9%–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1529†1517
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.7%†89.3%†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.7%89.3%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.6%95.3%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis55.5%47.8%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.2%†94.4%
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL39.3%†–
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark88.8%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize98.5%98.5%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize89.2%89.2%
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize–35.0%
CritPtArtificial Analysis28.6%18.3%
MysteryMechanismVals AI–36.5%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.0%58.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%47.0%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub60.3%51.5%†
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.4%95.7%†
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.0%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub13.0%†–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode61.0%56.6%
WeirdMLWeirdML91.9%84.8%
FrontierCodeCognition53.5%†41.2%†
Show all 157 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Fable 5 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
Coding
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench78.4%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1551†1528
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1624†1585
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench98.3%†82.2%†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench86.0%72.5%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.8%†89.5%
IOIVals AI–56.9%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI95.0%†80.0%
Code MigrationVals AI55.1%†36.5%
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI–38.6%
ProgramBenchVals AI2.0%†1.0%
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI–40.8%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI–18.8%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI90.3%†78.7%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL39.0%†47.0%†
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL54.8%†44.8%†
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL55.6%†53.7%†
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.9%†–
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.0%†76.9%
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub69.7%73.8%
CursorBenchCursor–39.6%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2041.3†1269.7
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.0%19.6%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis42.4%19.7%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis84.6%87.6%
Startrise FrontendStartrise73.8%†64.6%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–36.4%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench44.5%19.1%
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS15.8%†5.8%†
APEX-AgentsMercor63.6%†64.3%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)8.3†3.6
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench53.2%†30.1%†
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench92.0%†64.0%†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench62.2%54.2%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis62.9%–
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis98.5%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI80.5%†81.3%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL83.3%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL56.3%†41.5%†
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench39.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis–46.8%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis38.1%45.0%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–52.5%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis48.8%46.3%
CUA-benchVals AI–4.2%
CyberBenchVals AI–43.8%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI56.3%†61.4%
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI–65.8%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–12.1%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI11.3%†10.0%
Legal Research BenchVals AI49.5%†38.9%
SkillsBenchVals AI–58.0%
SREBenchVals AI–11.1%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI38.3%†32.1%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI41.4%†19.7%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI15.7%†8.6%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI–18.8%
Web Search IndexVals AI46.9%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1229†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub41.8%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub74.5%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs4966.65093.8†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis54.1%59.9%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis24.0%21.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey–0.0%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis51.1%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis15371202
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–10.0%
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–52.5%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis–14.5%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis–8.4%
FACTS SearchGoogle–76.3%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.0%68.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.2%21.9%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub99.7%98.9%
ProofBenchVals AI95.0%48.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench96.0%91.6%
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1521†1526
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub70.7%†69.7%
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.5%†54.0%†
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench86.9%†79.1%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.5%54.0%
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis43.329.6
MMLU-ProVals AI91.5%†90.2%
LegalBenchVals AI88.6%†87.0%
CorpFinVals AI71.8%†–
TaxEvalVals AI76.9%†74.5%
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL53.9%†49.5%†
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL52.6%†48.9%†
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–62.2%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.7%†72.2%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–72.9%
MedCodeVals AI56.1%†48.1%
MedScribeVals AI88.5%†84.5%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI70.4%†65.3%
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub39.5%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub29.8%23.2%
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis65.3%54.6%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis36.4%44.8%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench90.7%87.8%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench75.8%81.4%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis63.5%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1508†1490
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1503†1496
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1340†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1501†1485
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1517†1504
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1522†1510
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1325†1315
LiveBench DesignLiveBench84.7%†72.7%†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–85.6%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.3%†89.1%
MortgageTaxVals AI68.9%†65.3%
SAGEVals AI51.9%†35.1%
AudioMCScale AI SEAL–60.4%
AudioMC (text output)Scale AI SEAL–60.4%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub38.6%†38.6%†
AA-3DArtificial Analysis–969
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis82.3%81.3%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1499†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis20.6%10.6%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub163.4†157.4†
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench83.6%†67.3%†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench83.0%75.8%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis49.640.9
Vals IndexVals AI–56.0
Vals Finance IndexVals AI–60.5%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI24.3%19.9%
Vals Science IndexVals AI–35.8%
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI74.2%†–
Vals Router IndexVals AI–56.0%†
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis–25.1

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

What changed

  • Gemini 3.8 Flash: list price moves to $1.50 / $7.50 per 1M input / output tokens (announced).
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 8 new results (Code Migration v1.1, Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1, Finance Agent v2.1…).
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 3 score revisions.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 63.7 → 64.5.
  • Claude Fable 5 (max): 4 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, AA-Omniscience: accuracy, AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination…).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 1 new result (AudioMC (text output)).

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

Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash: questions

Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Claude Fable 5 (max) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (69.3 vs 64.4, within the ±5.8 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-24, so check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5 or Gemini 3.8 Flash, and will that change?
Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper today: $1.50 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. Yes, that changes: Gemini 3.8 Flash's list price changes on 1 Jan 2027, and from then Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper ($3.00 vs $20.00 blended).
Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash for coding?
Claude Fable 5 scores higher in coding (74 vs 64 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 61.0% for Claude Fable 5 against 56.6% for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Is Claude Fable 5 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash for agents and tool use?
Claude Fable 5 scores higher in agentic tasks (65 vs 51 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Terminal-Bench, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 44.5% for Claude Fable 5 against 19.1% for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 66). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Fable 5 1,000,000, Gemini 3.8 Flash 1,048,576.
Which has lower latency?
Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) answers first: 25.1 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 3.8 Flash?
Gemini 3.8 Flash streams faster: 141 against 70 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Fable 5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Across the 38 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5 leads 27, Gemini 3.8 Flash leads 9 and 2 are tied. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5 ahead.
When was Gemini 3.8 Flash released?
Gemini 3.8 Flash was released on 2 Sept 2026.