Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 94× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 27 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropic

60.7

Rank #13 Confirmed

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT Google

43.5

Rank #92 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 27 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher in 9 categories and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Opus 4.8 leads 64.7 to 21.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 82.9% for Claude Opus 4.8 and 35.2% for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT.
  • Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper at $0.0675 / $0.23 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 4.8.
  • Claude Opus 4.8 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT specifications
Claude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Noometry Index60.743.5
Released2026-05-282026-04-02
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K33K
Input $ / M tokens$5$0.0675
Output $ / M tokens$25$0.23
Results tracked6528

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 59.9 (#12), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 39.0 (#164)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena WebDev15561359
SciCode53.5%40%
WeirdML82.9%35.2%
LMArena Coding14901447
ALE-Bench1,564927.17
DeepSWE59%—
FrontierCode46.5%—
GSO47.1%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 4.8: 47.6 (#11), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
APEX-Agents48.9%—
OSWorld 2.020.6%—
Remote Labor Index8.3%—
τ²-bench Banking39.7%—
DeepResearch Bench50.2%—
PostTrainBench33.8%—
GBAEval70.9%—
GDP.pdf24%—
LMArena Search1204—
Vending-Bench 25,787—

Reasoning Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 64.7 (#16), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 21.8 (#213)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
CritPt20.9%0%
Chess Puzzles34%6%
LMArena Hard Prompts14821439
DTBench94.9%74.9%
LMCA57.5%29.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index158.21141.85
ARC-AGI-272.1%—
SimpleBench64.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark88.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)91.1%—
ARC-AGI-192.5%—
EnigmaEval23.5%—
EBR-Bench28.6%—
Mystery Game Puzzles36%—
Surface Evolver Bench87.5%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
ForecastBench59.9—

Math Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 78.4 (#13), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 47.6 (#67)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202598.3%82.2%
LMArena Math14871470
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)80%—
FrontierMath Tier 456.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions91.8%—
ProofBench69%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)47.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)31.3%—

Knowledge Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 61.3 (#29), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 45.7 (#85)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
GPQA Diamond91%73.2%
LMArena Expert15021447
SimpleQA Verified53%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.2%

Multimodal Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 42.9 (#26), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 40.6 (#46)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Vision12941260
Blueprint-Bench 214.5%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1475—

Multilingual Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 55.2 (#33), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 53.1 (#71)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Non-English14501421
LMArena Chinese15071495
LMArena French14811460
LMArena Russian14741434
LMArena Spanish14661417
LMArena German1472—
LMArena Japanese1440—
LMArena Korean1432—

Instruction Following Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 77.4 (#24), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 74.8 (#82)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Instruction Following14761420

Long Context Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 45.4 (#35), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 43.6 (#91)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Longer Query14831428

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 4.8 leads

Claude Opus 4.8: 72.0 (#16), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 58.6 (#115)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Text14611434
LMArena Creative Writing14541402
EQ-Bench Creative Writing18401305
LMArena Multi-Turn14761441
EQ-Bench 41281—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemma 4 26B A4B IT?

Claude Opus 4.8 is the stronger model overall, scoring 60.7 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 94× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 4.8's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 26B A4B IT?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper. It lists at $0.0675 per million input tokens and $0.23 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 4.8 lists at $5 and $25.

Is Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemma 4 26B A4B IT better for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 59.9 versus 39.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4.8 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT share?

27 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 4.8 has 65 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has 28.

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