# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.5 Flash across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gemini-3-5-flash
- Last updated: October 2, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 13
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 4.6 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Gemini 3.5 Flash leads overall 63.95 to 56.88.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 46.6 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 84.1 for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) in Agentic, with scores of 57.3% and 74.2%.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Google |
| Type | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 200K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 56.88 | 63.95 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 27 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | $1.50 / $9.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Gemini 3.5 Flash
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 43.4 (Supported · #53/119)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 50.7 (Supported · #42/119)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 59.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 72.1% | 78.4% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| Claw-Eval | 67.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 65.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 62.92% | 61.85% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 36.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 57.3% | 74.2% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| ApprenticeBench | 2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 76.2% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 83.6% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon | Coming soon | 56.5% | Coming soon |
| Finance Agent v2 | Coming soon | 57.9% | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | Coming soon | 18.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Gemini 3.5 Flash
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 47.1 (Supported · #48/144)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 52.3 (Supported · #39/144)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-Rebench | 60.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | 80.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 51.48% | 48.68% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| cursorBench31 | 48.8% | 49.8% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 24.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.1% | 87.6% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.4% | 78.8% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 76.2% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 55.1% | Coming soon |
| CursorBench 3.2 | Coming soon | 48.8% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 69.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 62.8 (#20/27)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MRCRv2 | Coming soon | 77.3% | Coming soon |
| MRCR 1M | Coming soon | 26.6% | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 72.1% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 55.1 (#34/49)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 87.8 (#6/49)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 77.4% | 84.2% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 83.6% | Coming soon |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Coming soon | 33.6% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Gemini 3.5 Flash
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 53.5 (Supported · #57/171)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 64 (Supported · #30/171)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | 95% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | 49% | 40.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 85.6% | 92.7% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.3% | 89.5% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 92.7% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 46.6 (#87/125)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 84.1 (#43/125)

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 48.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash public-lane score: 55.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemini 3.5 Flash | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 32.400% | 38.966% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 8.300% | 14.583% | Gemini 3.5 Flash |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.5 Flash?

Gemini 3.5 Flash is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.5 Flash?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 46.6 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 84.1 for Gemini 3.5 Flash.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 4.6 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 currently has 26 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Gemini 3.5 Flash cover on BenchLM?

Gemini 3.5 Flash currently has 27 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-cyber)
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber](/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-cyber)
- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-vs-gpt-6-astra)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash profile](/models/gemini-3-5-flash)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)