Claude Opus 5.5 vs Gemini 3.8 Flash
Claude Opus 5.5 took 11 min 46 s and $1.57 at list price, Gemini 3.8 Flash took 8 min 33 s and $0.32 at list price. Claude Opus 5.5 took 1.4× as long and cost 4.9× as much.
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic · $20.00/M out · 2,737 HN pts
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google · $4.13/M out · 1,293 HN pts
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is three people in a narrow workshop near the Maas in Rotterdam. Every day we open up instruments that were built before most of their current owners were born. Some arrive in flight cases and some come wrapped in old bath towels. Most have a story: a Juno that went quiet halfway through a gig, a Minimoog left in someone's attic for thirty years, or a modular system that a previous technician gave up on.
We started Patchbay because we kept seeing good synthesizers sent off as "unrepairable" when all they needed was patience, a schematic and a steady hand. We swap out dried capacitors, hunt for intermittent faults, recalibrate oscillators until they track properly again, and source or rebuild parts that stopped being made decades ago.
We don't try to make old machines sound new. Our job is to make them sound like themselves again, and to make sure they keep working for the next person who plays them.
Tucked away in Rotterdam, Patchbay is a three-person repair studio dedicated to the preservation and revival of vintage synthesizers. We believe that classic instruments are living machines rather than museum relics—tools built to inspire, create, and be played loud. Between the three of us, we combine decades of experience in electronics engineering, sound design, and meticulous craftsmanship. Whether tracking down elusive voice chips for an eighties polyphonic giant, rebuilding power supplies, or recalibrating the drift on a cantankerous monophonic circuit from the seventies, we treat every piece of gear with obsessive attention to detail. Our workbench is built on a deep respect for historical engineering and a refusal to cut corners. For musicians, producers, and collectors across the Netherlands and beyond, Patchbay is where forgotten circuits find their current again, keeping the tactile soul of analog synthesis alive and resonant.
Specs and numbers
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Gemini 3.8 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | |
| Made in | US | US |
| Released | 22 Sep 2026 | 2 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $4.00 | $0.825 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $20.00 | $4.13 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | closed |
| Hacker News points | 2,737 | 1,293 |
| Time for the six prompts | 11 min 46 s | 8 min 33 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $1.57 | $0.32 |
Gemini 3.8 Flash was cheaper: $1.24 less at list price, and less on 5 of the 6 prompts. Gemini 3.8 Flash was faster: 3 min 13 s less in total, and faster on 3 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's rebuild matched the screenshot at 89%; Gemini 3.8 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's game passed 5 of 5 checks; Gemini 3.8 Flash was not in it.





