Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite)

Compare Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic) and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) (Gemini) by price, context, capabilities, and latency.

Price deadline

Gemini Flash prices rise Jan 1, 2027

Per Google's published pricing page, Gemini Flash input prices double on Jan 1, 2027. The same workload runs an order of magnitude cheaper on DeepSeek and GLM. Source: Google pricing Full price breakdown

Budget control

Worried about runaway spend? Every API key supports a monthly hard cap.

Which should you pick?

  • Price: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) is cheaper ($0.0336 / image per image) vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($3 / 1M tokens input / $15 / 1M tokens output).
  • Context: Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the larger context window (200k tokens).
  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 adds: Tool calling, JSON mode, Long context.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) — full comparison

Compare price, provider, context, capabilities, latency, and source basis.

ModelProviderInputOutputContextCapabilitiesBest forLatencyStatusSource
Claude Sonnet 4.5anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5Anthropic$3 / 1M tokens$15 / 1M tokens200k
StreamingTool callingJSON modeVision
image understanding, multimodal chat1866-2548msCatalogPlatform curated
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite)gemini/gemini-3.1-flash-lite-imageGemini$0.0336 / image——
StreamingVision
image understanding, multimodal chat0-0msCatalogPlatform curated

FAQ

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) FAQ

Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) cheaper?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) is cheaper ($0.0336 / image per image) vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 ($3 / 1M tokens input / $15 / 1M tokens output). Actual cost depends on your input/output token mix — estimate it with the pricing calculator.

Which has a larger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite)?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is larger (200k tokens) vs — tokens.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) for Vision: which should I pick?

Both target Vision. Pick Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image(Nano Banana 2 Lite) to optimize cost, or Claude Sonnet 4.5 for the longer context window. Test both on real prompts before committing production traffic.