Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 30.1 to 10.4, and Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite costs 37.5x less per output token ($0.40 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 21 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite: which to pick
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, 57.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite for output tokens 37.5x cheaper ($0.40 vs $15.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
- Shared results
- 21
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
- 97
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite only
- 9
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads, 30.1 against 10.4.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a AA Agentic Index result, 31.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads, 85.6% against 70.2%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads, 92.3% against 42.1%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads, 87.3% against 79.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1285.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
Claude Sonnet 4.6 $0.011, Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite $0.0003 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the number, $1.68.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 57.3 from 5 benchmarks, Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 60.5 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Claude Sonnet 4.6 79.5% against Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite 19.0%, 60.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 $15.00 against Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite $0.40 per million output tokens, 37.5x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 takes 1M tokens, Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite 1.05M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Bars | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 0 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 5 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 21 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 66.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1523 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 63.0 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.1% | 71.4% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 77.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 39.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 57.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 49.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 59.3% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| SciCode | 50.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 53.0% | 4.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1503 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1491 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1512 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1529 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 30.1 | 10.4 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.8 | 133.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 31.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1190 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1213 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1212 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1196 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1226 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1177 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench research | 63.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 68.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 23.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 51.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 25.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 38.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 60.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 79.5% | 19.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| APEX-Agents | 43.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $7,204 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | Not measured | 36.9% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 85.6% | 70.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| LiveBench reasoning | 86.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.6% | 75.4% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.5% | 62.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.6% | 6.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 86.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 23.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 16.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1485 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1500 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1493 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1306 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1311 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 40.5% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 92.3% | 42.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 89.5% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 53.3 | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 53.3% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 85.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 45.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.3% | 79.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 82.1% | 82.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 65.3% | 57.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 77.1% | 66.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.7% | 57.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.1% | 88.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 34.2% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 75.9% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1470 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 37.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1285 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1272 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1259 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1277 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1234 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1276 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1197 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1235 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench design | 71.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 76.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 62.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 46.6% | 30.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.8% | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 60.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| IFBench | 56.6% | 49.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 80.0% | 55.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| DTBench | 89.9% | 62.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| LMCA | 46.5% | 18.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1476 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1435 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1472 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1491 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1428 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1420 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1410 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1443 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1479 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1444 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1431 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1298 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1307 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1296 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1248 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1195 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1272 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | February 17, 2026 | July 22, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $0.40 |
| Coding index | 57.3 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.68 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite for coding?
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, 57.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite for output tokens 37.5x cheaper ($0.40 vs $15.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite costs $0.10 and $0.40. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.6 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite?
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite comparison based on?
21 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.