Claude Opus 5 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash: Specs & Benchmark Comparison

Claude Opus 5 is developed by Anthropic, while Gemini 3.6 Flash comes from Google. Both were released in July 2026.

We have 13 benchmark results for Claude Opus 5 and 7 benchmark results for Gemini 3.6 Flash, but they overlap on a single test: DeepSWE 1.1, where Claude Opus 5 scores 68.8% against 49.0%.

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the cheaper API at $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens, roughly 3 times cheaper than Claude Opus 5 at $5 and $25. Both accept a context window of about 1M tokens. Both accept text and images as input.

CharacteristicClaude Opus 5Gemini 3.6 Flash
CompanyAnthropicGoogle
Release DateJuly 24, 2026July 21, 2026
Parameters
MultimodalYesYes
Context (input)1.0M1.0M
Context (output)128K66K
Input Price / 1M$5.00$1.50
Output Price / 1M$25.00$7.50
Average Score55.0%68.0%
Benchmarks
DeepSWE 1.168.8%49.0%

Visual Benchmark Comparison

Claude Opus 5
Gemini 3.6 Flash
DeepSWE 1.10.7 vs 0.5
0.7
0.5

Verdict

Gemini 3.6 Flash leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.

Overall Performance

Both models show comparable average scores: Claude Opus 5 — 0.5, Gemini 3.6 Flash — 0.7.

API Cost

Gemini 3.6 Flash is 3.3x cheaper: input $1.50/1M vs $5.00/1M tokens.

Context Window

Gemini 3.6 Flash supports a larger context: 1M vs 1M tokens.

Recency

Both models were released around the same time: 7/24/2026 and 7/21/2026.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better for coding — Claude Opus 5 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Direct comparison on the SWE-Bench benchmark is not available. We recommend reviewing other metrics on the comparison page.
Which model is cheaper — Claude Opus 5 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper for input: $1.50 per 1M tokens vs $5.00.
Which has a larger context window — Claude Opus 5 or Gemini 3.6 Flash?
Gemini 3.6 Flash supports a larger context: 1,048,576 tokens vs 1,000,000.

The Claude Opus 5 and Gemini 3.6 Flash comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Claude Opus 5 or Gemini 3.6 Flash page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.