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BenchLM

Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemma 4 31B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 23 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

85/100
Margin
24.0pts
← winning
61/100
3 category wins0 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #3; Gemma 4 31B unranked

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemma 4 31B share 23 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 30 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 7 to Gemma 4 31B.

Updated July 12, 2026
Shared results
23
Claude Opus 4.8 only
30
Gemma 4 31B only
7
Comparable categories
3 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 31B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 23 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 3 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 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 85 to 61. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 76.4 against 41.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 57.9% to 26.5%.

Claude Opus 4.8 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Gemma 4 31B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Gemma 4 31B.

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 4.8 and Gemma 4 31B
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8ΔGemma 4 31B
CodingClaude Opus 4.876.4Margin← 34.8Gemma 4 31B41.6
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7Margin← 9.4Gemma 4 31B53.3
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0Margin← 0.1Gemma 4 31B76.9
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3MarginNo overlapGemma 4 31BNot measured
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9MarginNo overlapGemma 4 31BNot measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · Gemma 4 31B

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.9%B 26.5%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 31.4
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 57.9%; Gemma 4 31B scored 26.5%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  2. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 93.6%B 84.3%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 9.3
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 93.6%; Gemma 4 31B scored 84.3%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputGemma 4 31B$0 input / $0 outputGemma 4 31B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableGemma 4 31BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableGemma 4 31BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81MGemma 4 31B256KClaude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%—Not comparable
BrowseCompSource 84.3%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 93.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 83.4%—Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source 53.9%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1600801Claude Opus 4.8 leads
MCP AtlasSource 82.2%—Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 59.9%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 72.97%35.26%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA Agentic IndexSource 47.2%14.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Tau2-TelecomSource 94.4%59.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GDPval-AASource 55.0%15.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
ResearchClawBenchSource 21.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 20.6%—Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1354—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 48.5%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 44.0%28.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA Harvey LABSource 7.5%0.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA Tau3 BankingSource 27.6%15.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA ITBenchSource —37.3%Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 69.2%—Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 84.4%—Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 38.4%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%—Not comparable
cursorBench31Source 58.4%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 62.3%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 74.3%43.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Terminal-Bench HardSource 58.3%36.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%43.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%—Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource —41.6%Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource —75.2%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
AA-LCRSource 67.7%62.0%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
CritPtSource 20.9%1.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
GPQASource 93.6%84.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GPQA-DSource 93.6%—Not comparable
HLESource 57.9%26.5%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 49.8%19.5%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 55.7%29.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%85.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-HLESource 45.7%22.7%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%-45.4%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%19.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%81.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
MMLU-ProSource —85.2%Not comparable
AA Openness IndexSource —38.9%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
USAMO 2026Source 96.7%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 47.241%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 31.250%—Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
INCLUDESource 87.6%—Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
OfficeQA ProSource 66.2%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 87.9%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 89.9%—Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 80.5%—Not comparable
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1281—Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource —76.9%Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource —73.4%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 31BResult
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%75.6%Gemma 4 31B leads
Frequently Asked Questions (4)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 31B?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 85 to 61. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 57.9% and 26.5%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 31B?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.7 versus 53.3. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 31B?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 76.4 versus 41.6. Inside this category, AA Coding Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 31B?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77 versus 76.9. Gemma 4 31B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

Claude Opus 4.8
API / mo$22,500
Self-host / moNot listed
Break-even—
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Gemma 4 31B
API / mo$0
Self-host / mo$429
Break-even—
Model the full break-even

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