Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 23 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 10 categories and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite in 0 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 66.2 to 38.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 68.8% for Claude Sonnet 5 and 35.2% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Noometry Index | 54.6 | 37.0 |
| Released | 2026-06-29 | 2025-06-17 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.40 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#26), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 68.8% | 35.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1483 | 1373 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,463 | 325.9 |
| DeepSWE | 53.8% | — |
| FrontierCode | 42.7% | — |
| CursorBench | 34.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1541 | — |
| SciCode | 54.3% | — |
| GSO | 37.3% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.8 (#18), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 54.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 36.9% |
| GBAEval | 65.3% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1194 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,378 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 49.1 (#39), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1461 | 1377 |
| DTBench | 92.5% | 62.8% |
| LMCA | 50% | 18.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.21 | 133.94 |
| SimpleBench | 60.6% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 40.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 75.1% | — |
| CritPt | 16.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 35% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 35% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 60% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 66.2 (#27), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1467 | 1373 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 65.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.7% | — |
| ProofBench | 77% | — |
| Omni-MATH | — | 48% |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 55.6 (#47), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1490 | 1373 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 33.7% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 53.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 3.3% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 30.9% |
Multimodal Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#31), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1274 | 1198 |
| VPCT | — | 30% |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 24.9% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1466 | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 53.8 (#55), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1431 | 1369 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1477 | 1404 |
| LMArena French | 1460 | 1388 |
| LMArena German | 1440 | 1389 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | 1359 |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | 1360 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1373 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1437 | 1396 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 76.3 (#41), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1452 | 1367 |
| IFEval | — | 81% |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#55), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1463 | 1373 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 47.2% |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5: 69.2 (#25), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1442 | 1379 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1416 | 1367 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1454 | 1366 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1794 | — |
| WildBench | — | 81.8% |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1236 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite?
Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 38.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite share?
23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33.