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Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5
Of the 5 public leaderboards that rate both, Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher on 1 and Claude Sonnet 5 on 4. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Gemini 3.5 Flash is at 27.3 and Claude Sonnet 5 at 43.5 (out of 100).
Scores as published by each board; table composed September 24, 2026.
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Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Claude Sonnet 5 | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,500 | 1,542.5 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| LiveBench global average (0-100) | 74.6 | 76 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SimpleBench AVG@5 % (private set) | 76.7 | 60.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| Vals AI Vals Index accuracy % · weighted finance + coding tasks | 53.1 | 59.6 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| Artificial Analysis intelligence index · measured runs only | 32.6 | 38.2 | Claude Sonnet 5 |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
Gemini 3.5 Flash at a glance
- Developer
- Status
- Live since May 19, 2026
- API price
- $1.50 input / $9 output per 1M tokens · Google, gemini-3.5-flash
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Live — preview since I/O, on OpenRouter.
Claude Sonnet 5 at a glance
- Developer
- Anthropic
- Status
- Live since June 30, 2026
- API price
- $2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens · Anthropic, claude-sonnet-5
- Context window
- 1M tokens
Shipped Jun 30.
Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5: quick answers
Which is better, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Claude Sonnet 5?
It depends on what you measure. Of the 5 public leaderboards that rate both, Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher on 1 and Claude Sonnet 5 on 4. Gemini 3.5 Flash's widest lead is on SimpleBench; Claude Sonnet 5's widest lead is on LMArena. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Gemini 3.5 Flash is at 27.3 and Claude Sonnet 5 at 43.5 (out of 100).
Which is newer, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Claude Sonnet 5?
Claude Sonnet 5. It went live on June 30, 2026, 42 days after Gemini 3.5 Flash (May 19, 2026).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Claude Sonnet 5?
Gemini 3.5 Flash is cheaper on both input and output. On each vendor's own API, Gemini 3.5 Flash is $1.50 input / $9 output per million tokens and Claude Sonnet 5 is $2 input / $10 output per million tokens. Prices as published in the models.dev catalog, as of 2026-09-24.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Claude Sonnet 5?
Gemini 3.5 Flash, at 1.05M tokens against Claude Sonnet 5's 1M, as each vendor lists it.
Who makes Gemini 3.5 Flash and Claude Sonnet 5?
Gemini 3.5 Flash is from Google; Claude Sonnet 5 is from Anthropic.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed September 24, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
More comparisons
Watch free: Chrome push the moment a new model answers on a public API, an email about 15 minutes later. Also: the bench index · API pricing · the wire