Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 36 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 Anthropic

44.1

Rank #81 Confirmed

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Google

40.8

Rank #144 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 36 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite in 2 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads 47.3 to 37.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 37.3% for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 8.2% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.5.
  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 200K.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Noometry Index44.140.8
Released2025-09-292026-03-03
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window200K1.05M
Max output64K66K
Input $ / M tokens$3$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$15$1.50
Results tracked7338

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 47.3 (#61), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena WebDev13931256
SciCode44.7%41.9%
WeirdML47.7%52.2%
LMArena Coding14891400
ALE-Bench796.15797.73
SWE-bench Verified71.3%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)71.4%—
SWE-bench Multilingual67%—
GSO14.7%—
AlgoTune1.52—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 38.3 (#32), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
DeepResearch Bench52.6%37.3%
Terminal-Bench46.5%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard73.2%—
GDPval42.5%—
Remote Labor Index2.1%—
τ²-bench Airline72%—
τ²-bench Banking25.3%—
τ²-bench Retail72.4%—
τ²-bench Telecom84.9%—
Cybench60%—
OSWorld62.9%—
LMArena Search1159—
METR Time Horizons67.4%—
Vending-Bench 23,839—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 26.9 (#125), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
Kagi LLM Benchmark57.9%67.2%
NYT Connections (extended)37.3%8.2%
CritPt1.1%1.1%
Chess Puzzles12%25%
EnigmaEval6%3%
LMArena Hard Prompts14621407
DTBench83.2%76.8%
LMCA38.8%35%
Epoch Capabilities Index146.84144.47
ForecastBench61.954.4
ARC-AGI-213.6%—
SimpleBench54.3%—
ARC-AGI-163.7%—
Thematic Generalization—63.3%
EBR-Bench2.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles17%—

Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 32.3 (#216), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)23.9%27.7%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202577.8%80%
LMArena Math14491428
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%—
ProofBench19%—
Omni-MATH55.3%—
MATH Level 597.7%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)15.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 48.4 (#76), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
GPQA Diamond82.3%81.8%
Humanity's Last Exam13.7%8.6%
Vectara Hallucination Rate12%8.2%
LMArena Expert14821398
SimpleQA Verified30.7%—
MMLU-Pro86.9%—
GPQA (HELM)68.6%—

Multimodal Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 34.8 (#89), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Vision—1240
VPCT39.8%—
LMArena Document1450—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 53.4 (#69), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Non-English14251411
LMArena Chinese14591461
LMArena French14581424
LMArena German14271429
LMArena Japanese13901413
LMArena Korean14031392
LMArena Russian14371420
LMArena Spanish14571421

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 75.0 (#78), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Instruction Following14591377
IFEval85%—

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 45.2 (#46), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Longer Query14761394

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.5: 66.5 (#34), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.5Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Text14391416
LMArena Creative Writing14421401
LMArena Multi-Turn14651417
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1678—
WildBench85.4%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.5 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.3 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite share?

36 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.5 has 73 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38.

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