Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 52.3 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 6 categories and Gemini 3 Flash Preview in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 88.7 to 51.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 100% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 15% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview is cheaper at $0.50 / $3 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Noometry Index | 60.5 | 52.3 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2025-12-17 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 16 | 59 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 65.5 (#6), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.5 (#35)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1699 | 1439 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | 1,367 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 75.4% |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 75.8% |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 72.7% |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| GSO | — | 9.8% |
| WeirdML | — | 61.6% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1460 |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 44.9 (#14), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.6 (#27)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 64.3% |
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Airline | — | 82.5% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 27.3% |
| τ²-bench Retail | — | 76.8% |
| τ²-bench Telecom | — | 91.2% |
| DeepResearch Bench | — | 49.8% |
| BALROG | — | 48.1% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 10% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1198 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 3,635 |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 52.4 (#29), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#35)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | 26% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 33.6% |
| SimpleBench | — | 61.1% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 83.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84.7% |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 40% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1465 |
| DTBench | — | 89.1% |
| LMCA | — | 43.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 151.83 |
| ForecastBench | — | 58.5 |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 88.7 (#4), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.4 (#42)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | 51.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | 95.6% |
| ProofBench | 100% | 15% |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 67.6% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1472 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 35.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#11), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#30)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 89.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | 66.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 13.5% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1461 |
Multimodal Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 53.2 (#5), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.3 (#15)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1285 |
| GeoBench | — | 88% |
| VPCT | — | 72.6% |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
| LMArena Document | — | 1413 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.9 (#26)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1458 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1510 |
| LMArena French | — | 1478 |
| LMArena German | — | 1497 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1488 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1443 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1480 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1470 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.8 (#52)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1437 |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#63)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1452 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: —, Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.6 (#44)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1466 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1457 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1471 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Gemini 3 Flash Preview?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.5 to 52.3 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 3 Flash Preview?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $3 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Gemini 3 Flash Preview better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 65.5 versus 51.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Gemini 3 Flash Preview share?
9 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 16 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59.