Claude Opus 4.8 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro: Which Is Better for Coding? (2026)

head-to-head

Metric	Claude Opus 4.8	Gemini 3.1 Pro
SWE-bench Verified	~86%	80.6%
SWE-bench Pro	69.2%	54.2%
Terminal-Bench	~82.7% (TB2.1)	—
Input $ / 1M	$5	—
Context	1M	—
Open weights	No	No
Maker	Anthropic	Google DeepMind

when to pick each

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if

The hardest agentic refactors and long, autonomous multi-file tasks where every point of accuracy saves a human review cycle.

Pick Gemini 3.1 Pro if

Google's strongest coding model today, with deep Workspace/Cloud integration. (A 3.5 Pro is expected but not shipped.)

Ranked on our AI Coding Leaderboard, updated 2026-07-02. Scores are confirmed against primary sources; prices are per 1M input tokens and can change.

Primary sources

AnthropicAnthropic — Claude Opus 4.8 — Anthropic-reported; independent evals (vals.ai) track within ~1 point.
Google DeepMindGoogle DeepMind — Gemini Pro — DeepMind-reported pass rate; ties DeepSeek V4 on Verified, trails it on Pro.
BenchmarkSWE-bench — the real-GitHub-issue benchmark

$ quick-answers

Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Gemini 3.1 Pro for coding?

Claude Opus 4.8 scores higher on SWE-bench Verified (~86% vs 80.6%) and SWE-bench Pro, so it is the stronger coder on current benchmarks.

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.1 Pro?

Public per-token pricing isn't confirmed for both, so we don't print a price comparison yet.

Should I use Claude Opus 4.8 or Gemini 3.1 Pro?

Claude Opus 4.8 for the hardest, highest-stakes coding; Gemini 3.1 Pro when you want the best value or are running high volume. Both are frontier-class in 2026.