Ok, I was a bit addicted to Opus 4.5 and was starting to feel like there's nothing like it.
Turns out Gemini 3 Flash is pretty close. The Gemini CLI is not as good but the model more than makes up for it.
The weird part is Gemini 3 Pro is nowhere as good an experience. Maybe because its just so slow.
Yes! Gemini 3 pro is significantly slower than opus (surprisingly) , and prefer opus' output.
Might be using flash for my MCP research/transcriber/minor tasks modl over haiku, now, though (will test of course)
I will have to try that. Cursor bill got pretty high with Opus 4.5. Never considered opus before the 4.5 price drop but now it's hard to change... :)
$100 Claude max is the best subscription I’ve ever had.
Well worth every penny now
Or a $40 GitHub copilot plan also gets you a lot of Opus usage.
Missing a lot without claude code tho
I've tried both, and I'm still not sure. Claude Code steers more towards a hands-off, vibe coding approach, which I often regret later. With Copilot I'm more involved, which feels less 'magical' and takes me more time, but generally does not end in misery.