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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 11 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

68.59/100
No comparison
N/A
0 category wins1 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #16 (Supported); Gemini 3.6 Flash unranked (Not scored). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash share 11 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 35 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.6; 8 to Gemini 3.6 Flash.

Updated July 21, 2026
Shared results
11
Claude Opus 4.6 only
35
Gemini 3.6 Flash only
8
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Treat this as a split decision. Claude Opus 4.6 makes more sense if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model; Gemini 3.6 Flash is the better fit if agentic is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 11 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash finish on the same BenchAlign overall score, so this is less about a single winner and more about where the edge shows up. The BenchAlign headline says tie; the benchmark table is where the real choice happens.

Claude Opus 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.50 input / $7.50 output per 1M tokens for Gemini 3.6 Flash. That is roughly 3.3x on output cost alone. Gemini 3.6 Flash is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.6 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash
CategoryClaude Opus 4.6ΔGemini 3.6 Flash
AgenticClaude Opus 4.673.0Margin→ 10.0Gemini 3.6 Flash83.0
CodingClaude Opus 4.668.1MarginNo overlapGemini 3.6 FlashNot measured
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.669.1MarginNo overlapGemini 3.6 FlashNot measured
MathClaude Opus 4.636.3MarginNo overlapGemini 3.6 FlashNot measured
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.677.3MarginNo overlapGemini 3.6 FlashNot measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.6B · Gemini 3.6 Flash

  1. OSWorld-Verified

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 72.7%B 83%
    Winner: Gemini 3.6 FlashΔ 10.3
    OSWorld-Verified: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 72.7%; Gemini 3.6 Flash scored 83%. Gemini 3.6 Flash wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.6$5 input / $25 outputGemini 3.6 Flash$1.5 input / $7.5 outputGemini 3.6 Flash has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.640 tok/sGemini 3.6 FlashNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.61.78 sGemini 3.6 FlashNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.61MGemini 3.6 Flash1MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticGemini 3.6 Flash wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 65.4%—Not comparable
BrowseCompSource 83.7%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.7%83%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
τ²-bench resultsSource 84.8%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 70.4%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 73.7%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 66.6%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 61.85%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 19.9%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.7%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1421Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —38.7%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —46.1%Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource —961Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource —24.5%Not comparable
aaTerminalBench21Source —77.5%Not comparable
Coding
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.8%—Not comparable
SWE-bench Verified*Source 75.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench ProSource 70.7%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.4%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource 65.3%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 84.1%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 57.57%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 45.7%52.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 26.9%—Not comparable
deepSweSource —49%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —69.2%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
AA-LCRSource 58.3%69.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
CritPtSource 2.8%10.6%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
GPQASource 91.3%—Not comparable
GPQA-DSource 89.2%—Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 82%—Not comparable
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source 89.1%—Not comparable
HLESource 53%—Not comparable
HLE w/o toolsSource 40%—Not comparable
HealthBench HardSource 14.8%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (Text)Source 52.1%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.8%50.1%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.0%92.8%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
AA-HLESource 18.6%38.3%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 3.5%23.5%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 45.2%50.2%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 76.0%53.5%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
AIME25 (Arcee)Source 99.8%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 40.700%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 22.900%—Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
MMMU-ProSource 77.3%—Not comparable
ERQASource 51.6%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 83.1%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)Source 64.8%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 72.5%83.2%Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1325—Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6Gemini 3.6 FlashResult
AA-IFBenchSource 44.6%—Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Claude Opus 4.6 and Gemini 3.6 Flash are tied on the BenchAlign overall score, so the right pick depends on which category matters most for your use case.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Gemini 3.6 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 83 versus 73. Inside this category, OSWorld-Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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