Claude Opus 4.6 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

  • Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.8 Flash are level on LMArena’s text leaderboard (1502 and 1498).
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper: $0.82 / $4.13 per million input / output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.6.
  • On the 7 Vals AI benchmarks both have taken, Claude Opus 4.6 wins 1 and Gemini 3.8 Flash wins 6 (Claude Opus 4.6: MedCode).
LMArena text rating over time
14801490150015101520Feb 26Apr 26Jun 26Aug 26Oct 26
LatestClaude Opus 4.6 1502

Side by side

Models (2/6)
  • Claude Opus 4.6
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.8 Flash
The model
LabAnthropicGoogle
Released2026-02-042026-09-02
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M1M
Input, per 1M tokens$5$0.82
Output, per 1M tokens$25$4.13
LMArena, people’s votes
LMArena TextMillions of people compare two anonymous models side by side and vote for the better answer1502#6 of 3511498#8 of 351
LMArena WebDevPeople ask two anonymous models to build the same web app, try both and vote for the better one1546#45 of 1241585#36 of 124
LMArena VisionSide-by-side votes on prompts that include an image1316#6 of 1461315#7 of 146
LMArena CodingLMArena’s text votes on prompts that ask for code1534#3 of 3461508#17 of 346
LMArena MathLMArena’s text votes on math prompts1518#7 of 3391532#4 of 339
LMArena Creative writingLMArena’s text votes on stories, poems and other creative writing1505#4 of 3491489#8 of 349
LMArena Hard promptsLMArena’s text votes on the hardest prompts1524#5 of 3511509#9 of 351
LMArena Instruction followingLMArena’s text votes on prompts with specific instructions to follow1521#3 of 3511492#11 of 351
Vals AI, overall
Vals IndexVals AI’s headline score—55.95%#15 of 27
Vals AI, coding
Terminal-Bench 4.0Frontier-difficulty tasks an agent completes in a real terminal—19.70%#31 of 55
SWE-benchReal GitHub issues from open-source projects78.20%#30 of 8580.00%#23 of 85
Vibe Code BenchBuilding complete web apps from a plain-language brief, graded on whether the app works53.50%#57 of 11578.65%#29 of 115
Code MigrationRewriting working programs in a new language, graded on whether the new program still passes its tests—38.65%#22 of 28
LiveCodeBenchFresh competitive programming problems, collected after models’ training cut-offs to avoid contamination84.68%#38 of 14389.48%#3 of 143
Vals AI, finance
Finance AgentThe core tasks of a financial analyst, done as an agent with research tools—65.76%#5 of 31
Finance IndexVals AI’s composite of finance tasks—60.46%#9 of 31
Tax Agent BenchAgentic research into US corporate tax questions—32.12%#21 of 76
Vals AI, law
Legal IndexVals AI’s composite of legal tasks—69.78%#14 of 28
Legal Research BenchAgentic US legal research—38.94%#34 of 85
Vals AI, medicine
MedCodeAssigning the right medical billing codes from clinical notes48.24%#30 of 10748.13%#31 of 107
MedQAMedical licensing exam questions, measured on accuracy and on robustness to bias95.41%#12 of 92—
Vals AI, reasoning
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level questions in biology, physics and chemistry that experts answer well and search does not89.65%#29 of 13894.44%#4 of 138
MMLU-ProHarder, reasoning-focused multiple choice across 14 subjects, from law to engineering89.11%#15 of 13890.22%#5 of 138
AIMEProblems from the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, a qualifier for the US Math Olympiad95.63%#9 of 96—
MMMUCollege-level questions that need both an image and text83.87%#29 of 9389.08%#4 of 93
Terminal-Bench ScienceExpert-written scientific research workflows, run by an agent in a terminal—8.57%#19 of 42

Add models in the compare tool.

Questions

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.8 Flash are level on LMArena’s text leaderboard (1502 and 1498). Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper: $0.82 / $4.13 per million input / output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.6. On the 7 Vals AI benchmarks both have taken, Claude Opus 4.6 wins 1 and Gemini 3.8 Flash wins 6 (Claude Opus 4.6: MedCode).

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash is cheaper: $0.82 / $4.13 per million input / output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.6.

Sources

Every number on this page comes from these sources; models without a published number show none. Download the data. Cite as “Nexus Explorer, nexus.inc/models”.