Smart Stack

Side-by-side pricing, features and compliance for any tools in the directory.

Claude Opus 5 vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

Claude Opus 5

Anthropic

Pick it if: Claude Opus 5 launched July 24, 2026 with a 1 million token context window as the default tier and a new xhigh reasoning effort mode. It replaces Opus 4.8 as Anthropic's flagship Opus model for long-running agentic coding and research workloads.

Its edge: Leads SWE-bench Verified at 97.0%, the highest published score on the benchmark to date.

The catch: Output speed averages about 54 tokens per second, below the 73.7 t/s median for comparable reasoning models.

Gemini 3.6 Flash

Google DeepMind

Pick it if: Gemini 3.6 Flash replaces the previous Flash generation as Google's cost-efficient workhorse for agentic coding and desktop automation, finishing tasks with 17% fewer output tokens along the way. Its knowledge cutoff advances a full 14 months to March 2026, making it the default pick for teams that outgrew the old Flash tier but don't need a full Pro-tier model.

Its edge: DeepSWE score jumped from 37% to 49% between Gemini 3.5 Flash and 3.6 Flash, the largest single-generation coding gain in the Flash line.

The catch: Architecture details, including dense vs mixture-of-experts and parameter count, are undisclosed.

Pricing

Input / 1M tokens$5$1.50
Output / 1M tokens$25$7.50
Cached input / 1M$0.5$0.15
Blended cost (3:1)$10$3
Free tierfalsefalse
Pricing modelper-tokenper-token

Verdict & fit

StrengthsLeads SWE-bench Verified at 97.0%, the highest published score on the benchmark to date.; Scores 30.16% on ARC-AGI-3 at high effort, about 20x Opus 4.8 and roughly 4x GPT-5.6 Sol Max.; 1M token context window is both the default and the ceiDeepSWE score jumped from 37% to 49% between Gemini 3.5 Flash and 3.6 Flash, the largest single-generation coding gain in the Flash line.; Supports parallel tool calls and configurable reasoning effort for multi-step agent orchestration.; S
LimitationsOutput speed averages about 54 tokens per second, below the 73.7 t/s median for comparable reasoning models.; Accepts text, image, and PDF input only; no native audio or video input.; UK AI Security Institute testing found Opus 5 completed Architecture details, including dense vs mixture-of-experts and parameter count, are undisclosed.; Priority-tier latency guarantees cost roughly 1.8x standard pricing.; MLE-Bench score of 63.9% still trails what frontier Pro-tier models rep

Capability envelope

Context window1M1M
Max output tokens128K64K
Input modalitiestext; image; pdftext; image; video
Output modalitiestext; tool-callstext
CapabilitiesVision; Tool use; Code executionVision; Tool use; Audio input
Reasoning modeslow; medium; highstandard; configurable-thinking
Long-context recallhighhigh at 128K tokens, moderate at the full 1M window
Opennessproprietaryproprietary

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