Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 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 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) scores 5.9 points higher (28.1 vs 22.2) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $366; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 22.2, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 22.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 22.2 | −21.0% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 21.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $365.63 | −70.0% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 70.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.01s | 8.69s | −3.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 3.6% faster |
| 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 (Medium): 21.0% less intelligence, 70.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- 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 (Medium)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-sonnet-5-medium/gemini-3-5-flash-lite · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/gemini-3-5-flash-lite?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill