Google Antigravity 2.0 vs Claude Code: A Practitioner's Honest Take

Google Antigravity 2.0 launched May 19, 2026 at I/O as a direct Claude Code competitor. Antigravity leads on multi-agent orchestration, parallel sandboxes, and model speed -- Gemini 3.5 Flash runs 4x faster than frontier models at 278 tokens/second. Claude Code leads on raw coding accuracy: 87.6% on SWE-bench Verified vs Antigravity's default model at 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1.

I've been running Claude Code daily since early 2025. When Google dropped Antigravity 2.0 at I/O last week, I spent three days testing it against actual workflows -- not toy demos. Here's what I found. Spoiler: they're better at different things, and most of the comparison coverage gets the split wrong.

What actually shipped in Google Antigravity 2.0?

Antigravity 2.0, launched May 19 at Google I/O 2026, is now a full platform: standalone desktop app, CLI, SDK, and a Managed Agents tier inside the Gemini API. The headline addition is multi-agent orchestration -- compose squads of subagents with explicit roles, each running in an isolated Linux sandbox in parallel. Gemini 3.5 Flash is the default model.

The numbers on Gemini 3.5 Flash are real: 278 output tokens per second, ranked #2 of 147 models in its price class per Artificial Analysis, and 4x faster than other frontier models per Google's own benchmarks. On agentic tasks specifically, it scores 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 and 83.6% on MCP Atlas -- competitive, but below Claude Code's ceiling on pure coding accuracy. Google also added native voice command support to the desktop app, a first for a professional-grade coding agent.

If you're running the old Gemini CLI, this matters directly: it gets retired on June 18, 2026. Antigravity 2.0 is the official replacement, and the transition is not optional -- workflows on the old CLI break after that date. Pricing formalized at I/O: Google AI Pro is $20/month (base access), the new Ultra plan is $100/month with 5x higher rate limits, and Ultra Premium is $200/month with 20x limits. A Managed Agents API path exists for programmatic use, billed by compute time and tool call volume.

How does Antigravity's architecture differ from Claude Code?

Antigravity 2.0's core is the Agent Teams panel -- a visual interface for composing squads of subagents, each with a defined role, running concurrently in separate sandboxes with a unified timeline. You can pause, redirect, or kill individual agents without stopping the others. Claude Code, by contrast, runs as a single agent inside your actual filesystem with no visual layer and no sandboxing.

Claude Code is terminal-first: you run it alongside your existing editor, it has full unsandboxed access to your project directory, and it integrates into CI/CD pipelines via headless flags. There's no parallel sandbox model -- what you get instead is direct access to your real codebase, with the ability to commit code, trigger git hooks, and chain into shell scripts without an abstraction layer in between. That directness is what makes it safe to trust in automated pipelines.

The trade-off is concrete. Antigravity's parallel model is built for exploratory work -- "research this codebase from three angles simultaneously" is a natural task for it. But when those agents produce conflicting outputs, there's no built-in reconciliation mechanism in the 2.0 release; you review and decide manually. Claude Code's single-agent approach looks conservative until you've debugged a multi-agent coordination failure at 2am on a live system. That conservatism is a feature when you're dealing with production code.

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Benchmark reality: which tool actually codes better?

Claude Code with Opus 4.7 scores 87.6% on SWE-bench Verified, the standard benchmark for autonomous coding agents resolving real GitHub issues. Gemini 3.5 Flash, Antigravity's default, scores 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 -- an 11+ percentage point gap on structured coding tasks. For work where wrong answers create hours of downstream debugging, that difference is real cost.

Speed reverses the comparison. Gemini 3.5 Flash at 278 tokens/second is substantially faster per token than Claude Opus 4.7. In practice, Antigravity feels more responsive in an interactive session -- shorter pauses between outputs, faster iteration when you're exploring multiple options. For work where you're generating many candidate outputs and filtering them down, that speed matters more than the accuracy ceiling. For a targeted production fix in a live codebase, accuracy wins.

One honest caveat: Google hasn't published a full system-level benchmark for Antigravity 2.0 comparable to Claude Code's SWE-bench Full numbers. The gap I'm citing is model-level -- Claude Code as a system vs Gemini 3.5 Flash as a model. Antigravity can be configured to use stronger Gemini models for complex tasks, which would narrow the quality gap. Until Google publishes comparable system-level results, the published data favors Claude Code on accuracy.

Cost breakdown: what does each tool actually run you?

Claude Code Max is $20/month for 5x usage limits, or API billing at Opus 4.7 rates: $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. Antigravity Pro comes with Google AI Pro at $20/month, Ultra is $100/month (5x limits), and Ultra Premium is $200/month (20x limits). At heavy-use tiers, Antigravity costs 5x more -- $100 vs $20 for Claude Code Max.

Token-level costs tell a different story. Gemini 3.5 Flash runs at $1.50 per million input and $9 per million output -- significantly cheaper than Opus 4.7's $5/$25. For high-volume automated workflows where throughput and cost efficiency matter more than peak accuracy, Antigravity on the API path has a real cost advantage. A workflow processing 50 million output tokens per month saves roughly $800 using Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Opus 4.7.

One cost trap specific to Antigravity's parallel model: running 5 agents simultaneously burns 5x the rate limit quota in the same wall-clock time. The Ultra plan's 5x limits sound generous until you're running agent squads aggressively. Claude Code's single-agent model is easier to budget -- consumption grows linearly with session time, and $20/month for Max gives a predictable ceiling for individual developer use.

Which tool fits which workflow?

Use Claude Code if you're shipping production code in a real codebase, need headless automation in CI/CD, or want the highest accuracy ceiling for autonomous fixes. Its 87.6% SWE-bench Verified score, full filesystem access, and mature git integration make it the right call when wrong answers have real consequences. It's also cheaper at individual developer usage levels -- $20/month vs $100/month for equivalent heavy use.

Use Antigravity 2.0 if you're running exploratory multi-agent research, need visual orchestration for parallel workstreams, or are building new agent architectures rather than maintaining production systems. Its speed advantage on Gemini 3.5 Flash and the parallel sandbox model are built for workflows where exploring multiple paths simultaneously is the actual goal. If you're already deep in the Google Cloud or Firebase ecosystem, the native integrations reduce setup friction meaningfully.

My read after three days with both: I still reach for Claude Code when I need something correct in a production codebase. I can see Antigravity's orchestration model being useful for the research phase of a project -- multiple agents mapping a new codebase before I start writing anything -- but the multi-agent conflict problem is real enough that I wouldn't run it on production changes yet. Google has a pattern of iterating fast on developer tools, and Antigravity 2.0 is clearly a foundation, not a finished product.

FAQ

Is Google Antigravity 2.0 better than Claude Code?

Not across the board. Claude Code with Opus 4.7 scores 87.6% on SWE-bench Verified vs Gemini 3.5 Flash's 76.2% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 -- a substantial gap on raw coding accuracy. Antigravity 2.0 leads on multi-agent orchestration, parallel sandboxes, and speed at 278 tokens/second. The better tool depends on whether you're optimizing for accuracy or parallel agent throughput.

Does Google Antigravity 2.0 replace Gemini CLI?

Yes. Google announced at I/O 2026 that Gemini CLI will be retired June 18, 2026. Antigravity 2.0 is the official replacement and includes a CLI component alongside the desktop app and SDK. Any workflows built on the old Gemini CLI need to migrate before June 18 -- after that date they stop working entirely.

What model does Google Antigravity 2.0 use?

Antigravity 2.0 defaults to Gemini 3.5 Flash, which runs 4x faster than other frontier models at 278 output tokens per second and costs $1.50/M input and $9/M output tokens. Individual agents can be configured to use stronger Gemini models for tasks requiring higher reasoning accuracy. The Managed Agents API exposes model selection per agent call.

How much does Google Antigravity 2.0 cost?

Antigravity 2.0 has three paid tiers: Pro at $20/month (included with Google AI Pro), Ultra at $100/month with 5x higher rate limits, and Ultra Premium at $200/month with 20x limits. API access through the Gemini Managed Agents API is billed separately by compute time and tool call volume. A free tier is available with lower limits.

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Google Antigravity 2.0 vs Claude Code: A Practitioner's Honest Take