Head-to-head comparison across 1benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Claude Sonnet 4.6
83
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
48
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 1M context window.
Multimodal
+4.2 difference
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
$3 / $15
$0.25 / $1.5
44 t/s
205 t/s
1.48s
7.50s
200K
1M
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 1M context window.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 83 to 48. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Claude Sonnet 4.6's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 77.4 against 73.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is CharXiv, 77.4% to 73.2%.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.25 input / $1.50 output per 1M tokens for Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite. That is roughly 10.0x on output cost alone. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 83 to 48. The biggest single separator in this matchup is CharXiv, where the scores are 77.4% and 73.2%.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.4 versus 73.2. Inside this category, AA-MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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