Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 29.2 points higher (44.8 vs 15.6) but costs 18× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $156; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 15.6, and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when 15.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 15.6 | −65.2% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 65.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $155.87 | −94.3% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 94.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 6.15s | −53.2% Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is 53.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.25 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 65.2% less intelligence, 94.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 53.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-preview?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill