Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 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 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 34 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Google

40.8

Rank #144 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 34 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 9 categories and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite in 1 category; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 22.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 80.9% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 4.6.
  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
ProviderAnthropicGoogle
Noometry Index50.340.8
Released2026-02-172026-03-03
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M1.05M
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$3$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$15$1.50
Results tracked5738

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena WebDev15221256
SciCode46.8%41.9%
WeirdML66.1%52.2%
LMArena Coding15041400
ALE-Bench1,327797.73
SWE-bench Verified75.2%—
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
DeepResearch Bench54.9%37.3%
Terminal-Bench53.4%—
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
OSWorld72.1%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—
Vending-Bench 27,204—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%8.2%
CritPt3.1%1.1%
Chess Puzzles13%25%
Thematic Generalization76.3%63.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts14841407
DTBench89.9%76.8%
LMCA46.5%35%
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24144.47
ForecastBench6254.4
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark—67.2%
ARC-AGI-186.5%—
EnigmaEval—3%
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%80%
LMArena Math14621428
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—27.7%
ProofBench45%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
GPQA Diamond87.4%81.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%8.2%
LMArena Expert15001398
Humanity's Last Exam—8.6%
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—

Multimodal Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Vision12831240
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Non-English14401411
LMArena Chinese14911461
LMArena French14651424
LMArena German14281429
LMArena Japanese14201413
LMArena Korean14111392
LMArena Russian14401420
LMArena Spanish14641421

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Instruction Following14751377

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Longer Query14791394

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
LMArena Text14581416
LMArena Creative Writing14351401
LMArena Multi-Turn14641417
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1810—
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 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 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 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 1M.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite share?

34 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38.

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