In one of the major AI announcements of the year, Anthropic has officially released Claude 4, bringing Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 to everyone. The news is noteworthy, but we have a different agenda. Today’s models can handle entire development workflows, from architectural planning to complex debugging. But with Anthropic’s new Claude 4 series, the established Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro all claiming coding supremacy, which one *actually* performs the best? Which one’s the fastest? Which one offers the most efficient pricing?
After analyzing benchmarks, developer feedback, and practical considerations, here’s what you need to know. Here’s a detailed Claude 4 vs. Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs. Gemini 2.5 Pro coding comparison.
Claude 4 (Sonnet & Opus) Overview
Released on May 22, the Claude 4 model family is here. As per Anthropic, Claude Opus 4 is the best coding model in the world. It performs well on complex tasks and works effectively with agent workflows (the benchmarks prove, as we’ll see later). Claude Sonnet 4 is a major upgrade from Claude Sonnet 3.7 as it improves coding and reasoning and responds more accurately to your instructions. Besides, both models can use tools like web search during extended thinking to enhance responses.
Claude 4 Coding Performance
Claude 4’s variants, Sonnet 4 and Opus 4, lead in coding benchmarks. On SWE-bench, a key software engineering test, Sonnet 4 scores 72.7%, and Opus 4 scores 72.5%. Gemini 2.5 Pro scores 63.8%, while Claude 3.7 Sonnet trails at 62.3%. Claude 4 models seem best for coding tasks.
Claude 4 Context Window
Context window size affects how much code a model can process. Gemini 2.5 Pro handles 1 million tokens, far more than Claude’s 200,000-token limit. This makes Gemini ideal for large codebases. Claude 4 and 3.7 Sonnet are limited to smaller projects.
Claude 4 Cost and Accessibility
Gemini 2.5 Pro is the cheapest at $1.25 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. Claude Sonnet 4 costs $3/$15, while Opus 4 is pricier at $15/$75. Budget-conscious developers may prefer Gemini’s affordability.
Claude 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs Gemini 2.5 Pro – Overview
Claude Opus 4 is Anthropic’s new flagship model. It’s designed for complex, multi-step engineering tasks that traditionally take days to complete. Think large-scale refactoring, architectural changes, and autonomous coding workflows.
Claude Sonnet 4 is the practical workhorse—upgraded capabilities at the same price as its predecessor, optimized for everyday development tasks like code reviews and bug fixes.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet pioneered the “thinking mode” approach in February 2025. While superseded, it’s still capable and often praised for code reliability and design sense.
Gemini 2.5 Pro is Google’s answer, featuring a massive 1-million-token context window and true multimodal capabilities. It can process text, images, audio, and video simultaneously—imagine debugging by showing it error screenshots or generating code from UI mockups.
Claude 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs Gemini 2.5 Pro Performance: Where Each Model Shines
Real-World Software Engineering
On SWE-bench (solving actual GitHub issues), Claude 4 models dominate:
- Claude Opus 4: 72.5%
- Claude Sonnet 4: 72.7%
- Claude 3.7 Sonnet: 70.3%
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: 63.2%
This isn’t just academic—it means Claude 4 models are genuinely better at understanding complex codebases and implementing fixes that actually work.
Algorithmic and Mathematical Coding
Gemini 2.5 Pro takes the lead here:
- AIME 2024 (advanced math): Gemini 92%, Claude 3.7 80%
- LiveCodeBench (competitive programming): Gemini 75.6%
- Creative PyTorch coding: Gemini leads
If you’re doing data science, algorithm development, or mathematical simulations, Gemini has a clear edge.
UI and Frontend Development
User experiences reveal interesting patterns. Developers consistently praise Gemini 2.5 Pro as the “new UI king,” noting it “nailed the UI design almost perfectly” when matching reference images. One developer observed that Claude is “very good at visuals, front-end making things look really pretty, adding animations,” while Gemini is “substantially better at underlying code and making things more functional.”
Claude 3.7 Sonnet gets mixed reviews—praised for “sophisticated frontends with remarkable design quality” but criticized for stumbling on details like colors and missing input boxes. Claude 4 will likely address these issues and give users the best Claude coding experience to date.
The Game-Changing Differences
Context: Size Matters
This is where Gemini 2.5 Pro becomes genuinely transformative. Its 1-million-token context window (expanding to 2 million) means you can feed it entire codebases—around 30,000 lines—in a single conversation.
Claude models are limited to 200K tokens. That’s still substantial, but for massive enterprise codebases, Gemini’s context window eliminates the need for chunking code or complex workarounds.
Multimodal Magic
Gemini 2.5 Pro’s native multimodality isn’t just a feature—it’s a workflow revolution. You can:
- Debug by uploading error screenshots
- Generate code from architectural diagrams
- Analyze UI mockups alongside requirements
- Get insights from video walkthroughs
Claude models handle text and images well, but Gemini’s true multimodal understanding feels more natural and comprehensive.
Thinking vs. Speed
All models now feature “thinking” modes—they pause to reason through complex problems rather than immediately generating responses. But there are differences:
Claude’s “extended thinking” can be controlled with “thinking budgets,” letting you balance speed vs. depth. Claude Opus 4 scored an impressive 98.43% on graduate-level physics reasoning.
Gemini 2.5 Pro’s experimental “Deep Think” mode considers multiple hypotheses before responding. Developers consistently praise its speed, with “very quick” responses enabling “rapid iterative cycles.”
Claude 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs Gemini 2.5 Pro – Real Developer Experiences
Code Quality and Reliability
Early reviews noted that Claude Opus 4 is the “first model that boosts code quality during editing and debugging… without sacrificing performance or reliability.” Cursor describes it as “state-of-the-art for coding and a leap forward in complex codebase understanding.”
However, one developer reported Claude 4 “still went into his own vibe and did everything except what was told in the prompt,”—suggesting it sometimes needs more precise guidance.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet gets praised for “complete production-grade code with genuine design taste” but criticized as an “extremely creative try hard that happens to have an over-engineering problem.”
Gemini 2.5 Pro is described as having “fewer bugs in the code” but being “TOO defensive coding at times.”
Speed and Iteration
Gemini 2.5 Pro consistently wins on speed. Developers love its quick responses for rapid debugging cycles. One user noted it rewrote 180,000 tokens of code in about 75 seconds of thinking time.
Claude models offer both instant responses and deep thinking modes, but Claude 3.7 Sonnet is notably slower at 75.3 tokens per second with higher latency.
Integration and Ecosystem
Platform Availability
Claude models integrate with GitHub Copilot, VS Code, JetBrains, and Amazon Bedrock. Claude Code offers a dedicated terminal tool with GitHub Actions integration.
Gemini 2.5 Pro deeply integrates with Google Cloud, Vertex AI, BigQuery ML, Android Studio, and the full Google ecosystem.
Your existing tech stack might determine your choice. Heavy Google Cloud users will find Gemini seamless. GitHub-centric teams might prefer Claude’s direct integrations.
API Pricing Models
Claude Opus 4 Pricing
The pricing for Claude Opus 4 is $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens. Anthropic offers potential cost savings of up to 90% with prompt caching and 50% with batch processing.
Claude Sonnet 4 & Claude 3.7 Sonnet Pricing
Both Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet share the same pricing structure: $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. Similar to Opus 4, they also offer up to 90% cost savings with prompt caching and 50% with batch processing.
Gemini 2.5 Pro Pricing
Gemini 2.5 Pro employs a tiered pricing model based on token count:
- Input: $1.25 per million tokens for prompts up to 200,000 tokens, and $2.50 per million tokens for prompts exceeding 200,000 tokens.
- Output (including thinking tokens): $10.00 per million tokens for prompts up to 200,000 tokens, and $15.00 per million tokens for prompts exceeding 200,000 tokens. Notably, there is no additional charge for “thinking” tokens.
Claude 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet vs Gemini 2.5 Pro – Features & Cost Comparison Table
Here’s a snapshot of the main features and pricing details of each model;
Try These Coding Prompts
Try Claude 4 models and others, such as Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 2.5 Pro, here to see how they perform in these coding tasks:
The Bottom Line
Claude 4, particularly Sonnet 4, appears to be the best for coding due to its superior SWE-bench scores (72.7% without extended thinking, 80.2% with high compute). Opus 4 is nearly as good (72.5%, 79.4%) and excels in long-running tasks. Gemini 2.5 Pro, with a 63.8% SWE-bench score, is a strong contender, especially for large codebases, due to its 1-million-token context window and lower cost ($1.25/$10 per million tokens). Claude 3.7 Sonnet, at 62.3%, is solid but outdated compared to newer models.
Bind AI’s Recommendation:
- Choose Claude 4 for top coding performance. Sonnet 4 is cost-effective for general tasks, while Opus 4 suits complex, sustained projects.
- Choose Gemini 2.5 Pro for large codebases or budget constraints, offering great value and versatility. [Try here]
- Consider Claude 3.7 Sonnet only if you’re already using it and can’t upgrade yet. [Try here]
Your choice depends on project needs, budget, and whether you prioritize raw performance or large-scale processing.