Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemma 3 12B

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 107× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.5

Rank #3 Confirmed

Gemma 3 12B Google

31.8

Rank #255 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 92.4 to 21.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 100% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B.
  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Noometry Index68.531.8
Released2026-09-222025-03-12
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M131K
Max output128K8K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$20$0.15
Results tracked3524

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Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.4 (#1), Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
SciCode66.9%17.4%
LMArena Coding15451281
FrontierCode54.4%—
CursorBench57.8%—
LMArena WebDev1820—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
MirrorCode77.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#13), Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
APEX-Agents73.5%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—30.4%
GDP.pdf30.6%—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 79.5 (#2), Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
CritPt31.7%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts15451309
DTBench98.9%48.8%
LMCA68.2%4.5%
ARC-AGI-292.5%—
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%—
ARC-AGI-197.5%—
Chess Puzzles—0%
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
Epoch Capabilities Index—123.49

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 92.4 (#2), Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%16.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math—1307

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.6 (#9), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
GPQA Diamond90.6%39.5%
LMArena Expert15641248
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—4.4%

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 56.5 (#2), Gemma 3 12B: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
Furniture Assembly83.3%—
MindCube—46.7%

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.8 (#1), Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Non-English15131318
LMArena Russian15321335
LMArena Chinese1572—
LMArena German—1370

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.1 (#2), Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Instruction Following15351299

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.3 (#18), Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Longer Query15401317

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.7 (#3), Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Text15181334
LMArena Creative Writing15381331
EQ-Bench Creative Writing20501126
LMArena Multi-Turn15201334

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Gemma 3 12B?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.5 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 107× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or Gemma 3 12B?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.4 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Gemma 3 12B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 35 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.

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