I always try Gemini models when they get updated with their flashy new benchmark scores, but always end up using Claude and Codex again...

I get the impression that Google is focusing on benchmarks but without assessing whether the models are actually improving in practical use-cases.

I.e. they are benchmaxing

Gemini is "in theory" smart, but in practice is much, much worse than Claude and Codex.

I find Gemini is outstanding at reasoning (all topics) and architecture (software/system design). On the other hand, Gemini CLI sucks and so I end up using Claude Code and Codex CLI for agentic work.

However, I heavily use Gemini in my daily work and I think it has its own place. Ultimately, I don't see the point of choosing the one "best" model for everything, but I'd rather use what's best for any given task.

> but without assessing whether the models are actually improving in practical use-cases

Which cases? Not trying to sound bad but you didn't even provide of cases you are using Claude\Codex\Gemini for.

I'm glad someone else is finally saying this, I've been mentioning this left and right and sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy that not more people are noticing it.

Gemini can go off the rails SUPER easily. It just devolves into a gigantic mess at the smallest sign of trouble.

For the past few weeks, I've also been using XML-like tags in my prompts more often. Sometimes preferring to share previous conversations with `<user>` and `<assistant>` tags. Opus/Sonnet handles this just fine, but Gemini has a mental breakdown. It'll just start talking to itself.

Even in totally out-of-the-ordinary sessions, it goes crazy. After a while, it'll start saying it's going to do something, and then it pretends like it's done that thing, all in the same turn. A turn that never ends. Eventually it just starts spouting repetitive nonsense.

And you would think this is just because the bigger the context grows, the worse models tend to get. But no! This can happen well below even the 200.000 token mark.

I exclusively use Gemini for Chat nowadays, and it's been great mostly. It's fast, it's good, and the app works reliably now. On top of that I got it for free with my Pixel phone.

For development I tend to use Antigravity with Sonnet 4.5, or Gemini Flash if it's about a GUI change in React. The layout and design of Gemini has been superior to Claude models in my opinion, at least at the time. Flash also works significantly faster.

And all of it is essentially free for now. I can even select Opus 4.6 in Antigravity, but I did not yet give it a try.

Honestly doesn't feel like Google is targeting the agentic coding crowd so much as they are the knowledge worker / researcher / search-engine-replacement market?

Agree Gemini as a model is fairly incompetent inside their own CLI tool as well as in opencode. But I find it useful as a research and document analysis tool.