BenchLeader

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

Full profiles: Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (Google): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 12 sources

As of 24 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 (max) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (63.3 vs 64.4 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±6.2 margin of error), and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) costs 6.7× 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 3.3× less ($3.00 vs $10.00 per 1M blended); on use case, pick Claude Opus 4.8 for maths (68 vs 62), Gemini 3.8 Flash for coding (64 vs 59).

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
CodingGemini 3.8 Flash64 vs 59 category score; SciCode 56.6% vs 53.5%Medium
Agents & tool useClaude Opus 4.857 vs 51 category score; Terminal-Bench 23.6% vs 19.1%Medium
MathsClaude Opus 4.868 vs 62 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 80.0% vs 68.4%Medium
ReasoningEither69 vs 68 category score; GPQA Diamond 91.0% vs 95.4%Either
KnowledgeGemini 3.8 Flash68 vs 67 category score; SimpleQA Verified 69.7% vs 53.0%Medium
Long documentsGemini 3.8 Flash66 vs 64 category score; AA-LCR 81.3% vs 77.7%Medium
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 $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.060 vs $0.400; from 1 Jan 2027: $3.00 vs $10.00–
Fastest first answerEither27.5 s (Claude Opus 4.8 (max)) vs 25.1 s (Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)) 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 Opus 4.8 (max) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (63.3 vs 64.4, within the ±6.2 margin).
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, composite, instruction following, maths, reasoning.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) is stronger in coding, knowledge, long context, human preference, multimodal.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) is 6.7× cheaper ($1.50 vs $10.00 per 1M blended) until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 vs $10.00 from 1 Jan 2027.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) streams 2.2× faster (141 vs 63 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 4.8Gemini 3.8 Flash
DeveloperAnthropicGoogle
Released28 May 20262 Sept 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atClaude Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$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 Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)Leader
Reasoning68.868.2level
Coding58.963.5Gemini 3.8 Flash
Agents & tools56.550.9Claude Opus 4.8
Maths68.162.4Claude Opus 4.8
Knowledge66.968.4Gemini 3.8 Flash
Instruction following62.1–not comparable
Human preference–69.1not comparable
Multimodal–67.7not comparable
Long context63.865.7Gemini 3.8 Flash
Composite76.275.3level

Where sources disagree

Across the 36 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.8 leads 15, Gemini 3.8 Flash leads 21. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.8 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2; Gemini 3.8 Flash leads on Arena Text.

Overall indexClaude Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)Leader
BenchLeader Index63.364.4neck and neck
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.241.840.9Claude Opus 4.8
Arena Text1482†1496Gemini 3.8 Flash

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 Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
Blended price per 1M tokens, until 31 Dec 2026$10.00$1.50
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$0.750 / $3.75
Blended price per 1M from 1 Jan 2027$10.00$3.00
Input / output per 1M from 1 Jan 2027$5.00 / $25.00$1.50 / $7.50
Cached input per 1M$0.500$0.075
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0014
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.011
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.010
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.060
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0023
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$4.08$1.24
Output speed63 tok/s141 tok/s
Time to first answer27.5 s25.1 s
Time to a complete answer35.4 s28.7 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Opus 4.8 (max) cost $4.08 and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) $1.24, because Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) used about 2.0× 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 Opus 4.8 (max) scores 63.3 and takes 28 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 4.8 (high) scores 60.7 in 1 s, Claude Opus 4.8 scores 60.1 in 1 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

164 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 Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader63.364.4
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader56.550.9
Coding scoreBenchLeader58.963.5
Composite scoreBenchLeader76.275.3
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader62.1–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader66.968.4
Long context scoreBenchLeader63.865.7
Maths scoreBenchLeader68.162.4
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader68.868.2
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–69.1
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–67.7
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$1.50
Output speedBenchLeader63 tok/s141 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader27.5 s25.1 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.0%95.4%
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS–44.5%†
SimpleBenchSimpleBench64.8%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1505†1517
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.2%†89.3%†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench89.2%89.3%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.0%95.3%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis48.7%47.8%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI92.4%†94.4%
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL23.5%†–
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark88.8%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize92.5%98.5%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize72.1%†89.2%
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize1.5%†35.0%
CritPtArtificial Analysis20.9%18.3%
MysteryMechanismVals AI–36.5%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%58.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub36.0%47.0%
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub57.5%51.5%†
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub94.9%95.7%†
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.3%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.0%†–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode53.5%56.6%
WeirdMLWeirdML70.5%†84.8%
FrontierCodeCognition46.5%†41.2%†
Show all 164 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 4.8 (max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (high)
Coding
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench47.1%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1529†1528
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1536†1585
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench77.3%†82.2%†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.8%72.5%
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis54.4%56.6%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI87.8%†89.5%
IOIVals AI–56.9%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI88.6%†80.0%
Code MigrationVals AI47.3%†36.5%
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI–38.6%
ProgramBenchVals AI1.0%†1.0%
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI–40.8%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI–18.8%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI82.7%†78.7%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL57.3%†47.0%†
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL46.7%†44.8%†
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL49.6%†53.7%†
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.5%†76.9%
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%73.8%
CursorBenchCursor–39.6%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub1563.8†1269.7
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–19.6%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis21.7%19.7%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis84.6%87.6%
Startrise FrontendStartrise–64.6%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–36.4%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench23.6%19.1%
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld20.6%–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS8.3%†5.8%†
APEX-AgentsMercor48.9%64.3%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)–3.6
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench48.3%†30.1%†
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench96.0%†64.0%†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench50.5%54.2%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis58.3%–
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis94.4%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI71.9%†81.3%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL82.2%–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL35.3%†41.5%†
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench39.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis–46.8%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis34.2%45.0%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–52.5%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis45.0%46.3%
CUA-benchVals AI–4.2%
CyberBenchVals AI–43.8%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI53.9%†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 AI9.6%†10.0%
Legal Research BenchVals AI43.8%†38.9%
SkillsBenchVals AI59.2%†58.0%
SREBenchVals AI–11.1%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI30.0%†32.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI70.0%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI23.2%†19.7%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI4.3%†8.6%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI11.8%†18.8%
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1195†–
DeepResearch BenchDeepResearch Bench50.2%†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub32.9%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub70.9%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs2992.35093.8†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis45.6%59.9%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis22.8%21.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey–0.0%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis44.0%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis–1202
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 SearchGoogle79.6%†76.3%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub80.0%68.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub56.1%21.9%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.3%98.9%
ProofBenchVals AI69.0%48.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench94.3%91.6%
AIME 2026MathArena100.0%–
HMMT February 2026MathArena95.5%–
MathArena ApexMathArena81.3%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1477†1526
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub53.0%69.7%
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench66.0%†54.0%†
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench81.8%†79.1%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench66.0%54.0%
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis28.829.6
MMLU-ProVals AI89.6%†90.2%
LegalBenchVals AI83.6%†87.0%
CorpFinVals AI66.7%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.6%†74.5%
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL–49.5%†
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL–48.9%†
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–62.2%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI69.4%†72.2%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–72.9%
MedCodeVals AI53.2%†48.1%
MedScribeVals AI85.8%†84.5%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI68.1%†65.3%
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL46.8%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub28.6%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%23.2%
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis48.8%54.6%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis60.8%44.8%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench79.7%87.8%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench72.0%81.4%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis62.2%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1478†1490
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1474†1496
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1281†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1463†1485
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1495†1504
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1499†1510
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1289†1315
LiveBench DesignLiveBench78.8%†72.7%†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–85.6%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI86.6%†89.1%
MortgageTaxVals AI69.9%†65.3%
SAGEVals AI54.8%†35.1%
AudioMCScale AI SEAL–60.4%
AudioMC (text output)Scale AI SEAL–60.4%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.5%†38.6%†
AA-3DArtificial Analysis–969
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis77.7%81.3%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1475†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis19.4%10.6%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub159.0†157.4†
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench76.8%†67.3%†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench76.2%75.8%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis41.840.9
Vals IndexVals AI–56.0
Vals Finance IndexVals AI–60.5%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI24.0%19.9%
Vals Science IndexVals AI–35.8%
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI70.9%†–
Vals Router IndexVals AI–56.0%†
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis–25.1
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL18.2%–

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 Opus 4.8 (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 Opus 4.8 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): 3 score revisions.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): BenchLeader Index 62.5 → 63.4.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 63.7 → 64.5.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 (max): 5 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR…).

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

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash: questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Claude Opus 4.8 (max) and Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) are neck and neck on quality (63.3 vs 64.4, within the ±6.2 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 Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.8 Flash, and will that change?
Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper today: $1.50 against $10.00 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 $10.00 blended).
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash for coding?
Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher in coding (64 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 53.5% for Claude Opus 4.8 against 56.6% for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.8 Flash for agents and tool use?
Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in agentic tasks (57 vs 51 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Terminal-Bench, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 23.6% for Claude Opus 4.8 against 19.1% for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
Which is better for long documents?
Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 64). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Opus 4.8 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 27.5 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 Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Gemini 3.8 Flash streams faster: 141 against 63 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Across the 36 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 4.8 leads 15, Gemini 3.8 Flash leads 21. Independent sources split: Claude Opus 4.8 leads on AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2; Gemini 3.8 Flash leads on Arena Text.
When was Gemini 3.8 Flash released?
Gemini 3.8 Flash was released on 2 Sept 2026.