Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) 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 Sonnet 5 (Low) scores 2.1 points higher (24.3 vs 22.2) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($653 vs $366; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 24.3 | 22.2 | −8.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 8.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $652.70 | $365.63 | −44.0% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 44.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.46s | 9.51s | +12.4% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 12.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.30 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Low): 8.6% less intelligence, 44.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 12.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- 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 Sonnet 5 (Low)Gemini 3.5 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-sonnet-5-low/gemini-3-5-flash-lite · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-low/gemini-3-5-flash-lite?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill