Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash
Claude Opus 4.8 
Gemini 3.6 Flash Verdict
- Claude Opus 4.8 leads on quality: 64.8 vs 60.8.
- Claude Opus 4.8 is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, human preference, instruction following, reasoning.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is stronger in knowledge, long context, multimodal, maths.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is 6.7× cheaper ($1.50 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams 3.5× faster (194 vs 56 tokens per second).
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 64.8 | 60.8 |
| Agents & tools score | 65.0 | – |
| Coding score | 65.6 | 49.8 |
| Composite score | 82.1 | 72.4 |
| Human preference score | 65.8 | – |
| Instruction following score | 61.8 | – |
| Knowledge score | 66.5 | 74.7 |
| Long context score | 65.4 | 66.6 |
| Multimodal score | 64.5 | 67.8 |
| Reasoning score | 64.6 | – |
| Maths score | – | 54.8 |
| Blended price $/M | $10.00 | $1.50 |
| Output speed | 56 tok/s | 194 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 29.3 s | 16.8 s |
| Context window | 1M | 1.0M |
| SimpleBench | 64.8% | – |
| Remote Labor Index | 8.3% | – |
| FrontierCode | 46.5% | 34.4% |
| ProofBench | – | 36.0% |
| GSO-Bench | 47.1% | – |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 158.3 | 154.3 |
| LMArena Text | 1473 | – |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1503 | – |
| LMArena Coding | 1527 | – |
| LMArena WebDev | 1540 | – |
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | – |
| AA Intelligence Index | 42.0 | 34.3 |
| IFBench | 62.2% | – |
| AA-LCR | 77.7% | 80.0% |
| MMMU-Pro | – | 83.2% |
| AA-Omniscience | 28.8 | 22.1 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard | 58.3% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | 92.0% | 92.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | 48.7% | 40.8% |
| SciCode (AA) | 54.4% | 53.4% |
| τ²-Bench Telecom (AA) | 94.4% | – |
| LiveCodeBench | 87.8% | – |
| MMLU-Pro | 89.6% | – |
| LegalBench | 83.6% | – |
| CorpFin | 66.7% | – |
| TaxEval | 75.6% | – |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 71.9% | – |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 88.6% | – |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 92.4% | – |
| Vals Index | 60.9 | – |
| AIME 2026 | – | 96.7% |
| HMMT February 2026 | – | 89.4% |
| MathArena Apex | – | 26.0% |
| HiL-Bench | 35.3% | – |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1281 | – |
Data as of 2026-09-10. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash: questions
- Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.6 Flash?
- Claude Opus 4.8 leads on quality: 64.8 vs 60.8. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead overall as of 2026-09-10, but check the category scores for your use.
- Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.6 Flash for coding?
- Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in coding (66 vs 50 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper: $1.50 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token.
- Which is faster, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams faster: 194 against 56 output tokens per second.
- Which has the larger context window?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.0M against 1M tokens.