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Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

Gemini 3.6 Flash leads Claude Sonnet 4.6 on coding, 62.5 to 57.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Gemini 3.6 Flash costs 4.0x less per output token ($3.75 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 95 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Sonnet 4.6 Replace Gemini 3.6 Flash
Claude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic
Coding
57.3
Overall
60.3
Output $/M
$15.00
22
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle
Coding
62.5
Overall
68.3
Output $/M
$3.75
72
vs boards won of 95 shared, 1 tied

Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.6 Flash: which to pick

Pick Gemini 3.6 Flash for coding: it scores 62.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.3 for Claude Sonnet 4.6, though on 4 benchmarks against 5.

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 for work measured by Code migration (Vals AI) or ProgramBench (Vals AI), where it leads.

Model AClaude Sonnet 4.6Anthropic57.3/1005 independent benchmarks$1.68 per solved taskModel BGemini 3.6 FlashGoogle62.5/1004 independent benchmarks$1.49 per solved task
Shared results
95
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
23
Gemini 3.6 Flash only
14
Like-for-like categories
8 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.

At a glance

Coding index
Claude Sonnet 4.6 57.3 from 5 benchmarks, Gemini 3.6 Flash 62.5 from 4 benchmarks.
Widest category
Knowledge, 7.0 points apart on average over 11 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
SimpleQA Verified: Claude Sonnet 4.6 35.5% against Gemini 3.6 Flash 66.2%, 30.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Claude Sonnet 4.6 $15.00 against Gemini 3.6 Flash $3.75 per million output tokens, 4.0x apart.
Context window
Claude Sonnet 4.6 takes 1M tokens, Gemini 3.6 Flash 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.

Boards won, where both have a result
CategoryClaude Sonnet 4.6BarsGemini 3.6 FlashTies
Coding412
Intelligence02
Agentic work56
Reasoning311
Math13
Knowledge38
Web design07
General6231 tie
All shared boards22721 tie
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index412
Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
LiveBench coding66.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena WebDev15231538Gemini 3.6 Flash
AA Coding Index63.069.2Gemini 3.6 Flash
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)82.1%88.1%Gemini 3.6 Flash
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)77.4%79.6%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)55.8%64.0%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Code migration (Vals AI)39.9%30.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6
ProgramBench (Vals AI)0.5%0.0%Claude Sonnet 4.6
IOI (Vals AI)Not measured35.1%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)57.3%73.8%Gemini 3.6 Flash
SkillsBench (Vals AI)49.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)Not measured45.4%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SciCode50.1%53.4%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)53.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Terminal-Bench53.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
FrontierCode24.3%34.4%Gemini 3.6 Flash
WeirdML66.1%56.1%Claude Sonnet 4.6
ALE-BenchNot measured715.5Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: coding15031491Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: software and IT14911492Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena WebDev: React15121528Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena WebDev: HTML15271547Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena WebDev: from an image15291545Gemini 3.6 Flash
SciCodeNot measured10.8%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
AA Intelligence Index30.134.0Gemini 3.6 Flash
Epoch Capabilities Index152.8154.5Gemini 3.6 Flash
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index56
Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
AA Agentic Index31.829.0Claude Sonnet 4.6
Design Arena: agents building web apps11901197Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps12131181Claude Sonnet 4.6
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps12121198Claude Sonnet 4.6
Design Arena: agents building Android apps11971204Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: agents building Godot games1226Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: agents building games11771180Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: HTML slidesNot measured1099Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slidesNot measured1121Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: spreadsheetsNot measured1071Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveBench research63.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench browser68.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LiveBench long agentic23.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)51.0%56.3%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)25.8%18.0%Claude Sonnet 4.6
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)38.5%25.0%Claude Sonnet 4.6
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)60.2%65.4%Gemini 3.6 Flash
BioMysteryBench (Vals AI)Not measured58.5%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)Not measured4.3%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
τ²-Bench Telecom79.5%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
APEX-Agents43.0%46.9%Gemini 3.6 Flash
OSWorld 2.09.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
DeepResearch Bench54.9%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
OSWorld72.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Vending-Bench 2$7,204Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index311
Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
GPQA Diamond85.6%93.4%Gemini 3.6 Flash
LiveBench reasoning86.4%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)83.6%88.4%Gemini 3.6 Flash
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)87.5%92.8%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)33.6%40.8%Gemini 3.6 Flash
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)87.4%94.1%Gemini 3.6 Flash
ARC-AGI86.5%91.2%Gemini 3.6 Flash
ARC-AGI-260.4%60.4%Claude Sonnet 4.6
Chess puzzles23.0%42.0%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Mystery game puzzles16.0%30.0%Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: hard prompts14851486Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: expert15001490Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14931484Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Vision: diagrams13061314Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision: homework13111314Gemini 3.6 Flash
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13
Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
AIME92.3%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
OTIS Mock AIME85.8%94.2%Gemini 3.6 Flash
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3Not measured58.9%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
FrontierMath, tier 4Not measured22.0%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
ProofBench45.0%36.0%Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: math14621508Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: mathematical work14831492Gemini 3.6 Flash
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index38
Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
MMLU Pro87.3%89.3%Gemini 3.6 Flash
LegalBench (Vals AI)82.1%86.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash
CaseLaw (Vals AI)64.0%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)65.3%63.3%Claude Sonnet 4.6
TaxEval (Vals AI)77.1%74.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6
MortgageTax (Vals AI)67.7%67.6%Claude Sonnet 4.6
MedQA (Vals AI)92.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)Not measured53.1%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SimpleQA Verified35.5%66.2%Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: science14741489Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14511469Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: legal and government14701479Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: business and finance14641464Gemini 3.6 Flash
FACTS Benchmark Suite37.0%65.3%Gemini 3.6 Flash
Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
Design Arena: websites12841300Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: UI components12691294Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: game dev12581263Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: data viz12781289Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: 3D12341271Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: all code categories12751289Gemini 3.6 Flash
Design Arena: SVG1196Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Design Arena: ASCII art12351281Gemini 3.6 Flash
LiveBench design71.8%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index623
General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
LiveBench data analysis76.1%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)62.5%56.6%Claude Sonnet 4.6
SAGE (Vals AI)46.6%48.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash
MedScribe (Vals AI)Not measured79.7%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Vals Multimodal Index60.6%65.1%Gemini 3.6 Flash
IFBench56.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)80.0%80.0%Tie
DTBench89.9%95.5%Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMCA46.5%44.9%Claude Sonnet 4.6
Furniture assemblyNot measured23.3%Only Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
ExploitBench23.6%Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Text14581480Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: instruction following14761467Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: creative writing14351466Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision12831299Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: English14721482Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: non-English14401470Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Chinese14911531Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: German14281480Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Japanese14201475Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Korean14101429Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: French14651503Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Spanish14641476Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Russian14401488Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: Polish14431473Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: multi-turn14641481Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: longer queries14791475Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Text: writing and language14441470Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14311456Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision: English12981295Claude Sonnet 4.6
LMArena Vision: Chinese13071357Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision: reading text12961312Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision: humor12481289Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision: recognizing things1195Not measuredOnly Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing12721278Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Document14821456Claude Sonnet 4.6
Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
Image generation benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashLeader
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

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.011Fits in one request
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.0026Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.195Fits in one request
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.049Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 4.6$0.750Fits in one request
Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.188Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash 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.

Specifications of Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
SpecificationAnthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6Google Gemini 3.6 Flash
MakerAnthropicGoogle
WeightsNo public weights listedNo public weights listed
ReleasedFebruary 17, 2026July 21, 2026
Context window1M1.05M
Input $/Mtok$3.00$0.75
Output $/Mtok$15.00$3.75
Coding index57.362.5
Independent measurements behind it54
Cost per solved task$1.68$1.49
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Gemini 3.6 Flash for coding?

Pick Gemini 3.6 Flash for coding: it scores 62.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 57.3 for Claude Sonnet 4.6, though on 4 benchmarks against 5. Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 for work measured by Code migration (Vals AI) or ProgramBench (Vals AI), where it leads.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $0.75 and $3.75. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $1.68 and Gemini 3.6 Flash $1.49.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Gemini 3.6 Flash, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash comparison based on?

95 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and Gemini 3.6 Flash's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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