Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 22.6 points higher (44.8 vs 22.2) but costs 7.5× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $366; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 22.2, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 22.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 22.2 | −50.4% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 50.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $365.63 | −86.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 86.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 8.60s | −34.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 34.6% 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 (Medium): 50.4% less intelligence, 86.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.6% 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 3.5 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 (Medium)Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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