Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

Claude Sonnet 5 leads Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite on coding, 57.7 to 49.0 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs 4.0x less per output token ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 82 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Sonnet 5 Replace Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

Claude Sonnet 5Anthropic

Coding: 57.7
Overall: 63.2
Output $/M: $10.00

Gemini 3.5 Flash LiteGoogle

Coding: 49.0
Overall: 49.8
Output $/M: $2.50

vs boards won of 82 shared, 1 tied

Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: which to pick

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 for coding: it scores 57.7 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.0 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite.

Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite for output tokens 4.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.41 against $1.87).

Model AClaude Sonnet 5Anthropic57.7/1006 independent benchmarks$1.87 per solved task Model BGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGoogle49.0/1003 independent benchmarks$0.41 per solved task

82393

Shared results: 82
Claude Sonnet 5 only: 39
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite only: 3
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
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 scores 57.7 against 49.0.
6 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 38.2 against 22.2.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 43.6 against 14.3.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 88.9% against 83.8%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 5
Claude Sonnet 5 leads, 87.5% against 85.8%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1274.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Claude Sonnet 5 $0.0070, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite $0.0015 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Claude Sonnet 5 $1.87, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite $0.41.
Published attempt cost and pass rate

At a glance

Coding index: Claude Sonnet 5 57.7 from 6 benchmarks, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 49.0 from 3 benchmarks.
Widest category: Math, 28.3 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: ProofBench: Claude Sonnet 5 77.0% against Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite 13.0%, 64.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: Claude Sonnet 5 $10.00 against Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite $2.50 per million output tokens, 4.0x apart.
Context window: Claude Sonnet 5 takes 1M tokens, Gemini 3.5 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.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Ties
Coding	16	0	1 tie
Intelligence	2	0
Agentic work	6	0
Reasoning	11	1
Math	6	0
Knowledge	9	1
General	21	8
All shared boards	71	10	1 tie

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index160

Coding benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
LiveBench coding	74.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena WebDev	1540	1435	Claude Sonnet 5
AA Coding Index	71.5	49.3	Claude Sonnet 5
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	82.4%	79.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	79.6%	75.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)	10.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	81.3%	37.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
Code migration (Vals AI)	44.4%	6.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
ProgramBench (Vals AI)	0.0%	0.0%	Tie
IOI (Vals AI)	45.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)	74.5%	50.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)	13.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)	46.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)	70.3%	59.1%	Claude Sonnet 5
SciCode	54.3%	41.3%	Claude Sonnet 5
FrontierCode	42.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
GSO-Bench	37.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
WeirdML	68.8%	39.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
ALE-Bench	1463.1	765.3	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: coding	1483	1453	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: software and IT	1474	1451	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena WebDev: React	1541	1408	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena WebDev: HTML	1527	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena WebDev: from an image	1540	1448	Claude Sonnet 5
SciCode	10.7%	6.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20

Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	38.2	22.2	Claude Sonnet 5
Epoch Capabilities Index	156.9	144.9	Claude Sonnet 5

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60

Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
AA Agentic Index	43.6	14.3	Claude Sonnet 5
Design Arena: agents building web apps	1245	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps	1249	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps	1215	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps	1227	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games	1225	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: agents building games	1227	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: HTML slides	1168	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides	1191	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets	1035	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench research	82.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench browser	72.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench long agentic	39.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
SREBench (Vals AI)	0.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)	53.9%	47.4%	Claude Sonnet 5
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)	29.4%	7.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)	41.8%	13.9%	Claude Sonnet 5
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)	66.3%	43.2%	Claude Sonnet 5
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)	5.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
APEX-Agents	54.5%	29.3%	Claude Sonnet 5
Vending-Bench 2	$6,378	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index111

Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
GPQA Diamond	88.9%	83.8%	Claude Sonnet 5
LiveBench reasoning	88.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	83.0%	83.6%	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	91.1%	83.8%	Claude Sonnet 5
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	41.3%	18.8%	Claude Sonnet 5
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	90.5%	83.3%	Claude Sonnet 5
ARC-AGI	Not measured	53.5%	Only Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite measured
ARC-AGI-2	Not measured	10.3%	Only Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite measured
SimpleBench	60.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Chess puzzles	45.0%	21.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
Mystery game puzzles	35.0%	19.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1461	1441	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: expert	1489	1434	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1464	1440	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Vision: diagrams	1293	1284	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Vision: homework	1311	1291	Claude Sonnet 5
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here

MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60

Math benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
OTIS Mock AIME	94.7%	71.1%	Claude Sonnet 5
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	65.6%	26.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
FrontierMath, tier 4	29.3%	0.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
ProofBench	77.0%	13.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: math	1467	1434	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1481	1433	Claude Sonnet 5
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index91

Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
MMLU Pro	87.5%	85.8%	Claude Sonnet 5
LegalBench (Vals AI)	83.9%	84.1%	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
CorpFin (Vals AI)	67.0%	60.7%	Claude Sonnet 5
TaxEval (Vals AI)	75.6%	72.6%	Claude Sonnet 5
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	70.0%	68.7%	Claude Sonnet 5
MedCode (Vals AI)	47.5%	43.5%	Claude Sonnet 5
SimpleQA Verified	33.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text: science	1460	1451	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1442	1438	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: legal and government	1454	1431	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: business and finance	1436	1423	Claude Sonnet 5
FACTS Benchmark Suite	Not measured	53.5%	Only Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here

Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared

Web design benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
Design Arena: websites	1274	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: UI components	1277	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: game dev	1277	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: data viz	1251	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: 3D	1261	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: all code categories	1275	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: SVG	1192	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Design Arena: ASCII art	1207	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LiveBench design	82.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index218

General benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Leader
LiveBench data analysis	71.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)	66.0%	51.8%	Claude Sonnet 5
SAGE (Vals AI)	48.9%	47.3%	Claude Sonnet 5
MedScribe (Vals AI)	76.0%	70.9%	Claude Sonnet 5
Vals Multimodal Index	68.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	82.0%	76.0%	Claude Sonnet 5
DTBench	92.5%	83.5%	Claude Sonnet 5
LMCA	50.0%	37.6%	Claude Sonnet 5
Surface Evolver Bench	60.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
LMArena Text	1442	1435	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: instruction following	1452	1419	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: creative writing	1416	1421	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Vision	1273	1269	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: English	1450	1438	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: non-English	1431	1427	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: Chinese	1478	1468	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: German	1442	1454	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Text: Japanese	1422	1426	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Text: Korean	1412	1407	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: French	1463	1451	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: Spanish	1438	1441	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Text: Russian	1450	1443	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: Polish	1425	1437	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1453	1445	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: longer queries	1462	1435	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: writing and language	1436	1428	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1411	1414	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Vision: English	1275	1269	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Vision: Chinese	1331	1311	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Vision: reading text	1288	1280	Claude Sonnet 5
LMArena Vision: humor	1261	1287	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Vision: creative writing	1246	1260	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
LMArena Document	1466	Not measured	Only Claude Sonnet 5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here

Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Image generation benchmarks for Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Benchmark	Claude Sonnet 5	Gemini 3.5 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

Claude Sonnet 5$0.0070Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite$0.0015Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5$0.130Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite$0.022Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Sonnet 5$0.500Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite$0.085Fits in one request

Gemini 3.5 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.

Specifications of Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Specification	Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5	Google Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Maker	Anthropic	Google
Weights	No public weights listed	No public weights listed
Released	June 30, 2026	July 21, 2026
Context window	1M	1.05M
Input $/Mtok	$2.00	$0.30
Output $/Mtok	$10.00	$2.50
Coding index	57.7	49.0
Independent measurements behind it	6	3
Cost per solved task	$1.87	$0.41
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite for coding?

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 for coding: it scores 57.7 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.0 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite. Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite for output tokens 4.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $10.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.41 against $1.87).

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite?

Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs $0.30 and $2.50. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Sonnet 5 costs $1.87 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite $0.41.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite comparison based on?

82 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Knowledge

Web design

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

Compare next