Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.5 to 43.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 66× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.

Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic

68.5

Rank #3 Confirmed

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT Google

43.1

Rank #88 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 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 5.5 leads 79.5 to 21.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is LMCA: 68.2% for Claude Opus 5.5 and 29.7% for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT.
  • Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper at $0.0765 / $0.26 per million input/output tokens, against $4 / $20 for Claude Opus 5.5.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 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 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Noometry Index68.543.1
Released2026-09-222026-04-02
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K33K
Input $ / M tokens$4$0.0765
Output $ / M tokens$20$0.26
Results tracked3528

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 71.4 (#1), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 38.8 (#156)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena WebDev18201359
SciCode66.9%40%
LMArena Coding15451446
FrontierCode54.4%—
CursorBench57.8%—
FrontierSWE62.3%—
WeirdML—35.2%
MirrorCode77.4%—
ALE-Bench—927.17

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#13), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: —

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
APEX-Agents73.5%—
GDP.pdf30.6%—

Reasoning Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 79.5 (#2), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 21.1 (#205)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
CritPt31.7%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts15451438
DTBench98.9%74.9%
LMCA68.2%29.7%
ARC-AGI-292.5%—
NYT Connections (extended)88.5%—
ARC-AGI-197.5%—
Chess Puzzles—6%
EBR-Bench71.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles71%—
Epoch Capabilities Index—141.85

Math Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 92.4 (#2), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 45.7 (#61)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%82.2%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)91.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 495%—
ProofBench100%—
LMArena Math—1469

Knowledge Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 66.6 (#9), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 45.6 (#79)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
GPQA Diamond90.6%73.2%
LMArena Expert15641447
SimpleQA Verified72.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.2%

Multimodal Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 56.5 (#2), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 39.9 (#43)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Vision—1260
Furniture Assembly83.3%—

Multilingual Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 59.8 (#1), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 53.3 (#68)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Non-English15131422
LMArena Chinese15721495
LMArena Russian15321434
LMArena French—1459
LMArena Spanish—1415

Instruction Following Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 80.1 (#2), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 75.0 (#78)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Instruction Following15351420

Long Context Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 47.3 (#18), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 43.6 (#87)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Longer Query15401427

Writing & Preference Claude Opus 5.5 leads

Claude Opus 5.5: 78.7 (#3), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 58.8 (#110)

BenchmarkClaude Opus 5.5Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
LMArena Text15181434
LMArena Creative Writing15381401
EQ-Bench Creative Writing20501305
LMArena Multi-Turn15201442

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Gemma 4 26B A4B IT?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.5 to 43.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 66× 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 4 26B A4B IT?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper. It lists at $0.0765 per million input tokens and $0.26 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5.5 lists at $4 and $20.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Gemma 4 26B A4B IT better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.4 versus 38.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT share?

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 35 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has 28.

Related comparisons

Go deeper