Claude Opus 5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

$2.19 / task
Wins 2 of 5 benchmarks
$0.93 / task
Wins 3 of 5 benchmarks
Opus 551.3
Gemini 3.8 Flash42.1
Opus 534.3
Gemini 3.8 Flash19.7
Opus 554.3
Gemini 3.8 Flash60.9
Opus 5at max1,471
Gemini 3.8 Flashat high1,487
Opus 581.6
Gemini 3.8 Flash84.2

Specs

SpecOpus 5Gemini 3.8 Flash
Input, per 1M$5!$0.75
Output, per 1M$25!$3.75
Cost per task?$2.19$0.93
Speed, tok/s55—
Context1M1M
WeightsClosedClosed
ReleasedJul 2026Sep 2026
See images✓✓
Read PDFsPartial✓
Hear audio—✓
Watch video—✓
Call tools✓✓
Force a tool callPartialPartial
Return strict JSON✓✓
Search the web?✓
Run code?✓
Use a computer??

What breaks when you switch

Opus 5 → Gemini 3.8 Flash
Sampling parameters are ignored›

temperature, top_p and top_k are ignored now and will cause HTTP 400 in future generations; remove them from requests.

No minimal thinking level›

The minimal thinking level returns an error; avoid minimal.

Gemini 3.8 Flash → Opus 5
Nothing known.