Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (High) scores 25.9 points higher (48.1 vs 22.2) but costs 12× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $366; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 22.2, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 22.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 22.2 | −53.8% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 53.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $365.63 | −91.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 91.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.66s | 9.51s | −61.4% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 61.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.30 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 53.8% less intelligence, 91.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 61.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Opus 5 (High)Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/gemini-3-5-flash-lite · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/gemini-3-5-flash-lite?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill