Model comparison
Claude 2.1 vs Gemma 3 12B
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude 2.1 scores higher in 1 category and Gemma 3 12B in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Gemma 3 12B leads 22.3 to 10.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.9% for Claude 2.1 and 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Noometry Index | 25.2 | 32.1 |
| Released | 2023-11-21 | 2025-03-12 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | — | 131K |
| Max output | — | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 7 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemma 3 12B leads
Claude 2.1: 26.2 (#327), Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 17.4% |
| WeirdML | 7.1% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1281 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 30.4% |
Reasoning Claude 2.1 leads
Claude 2.1: 21.4 (#221), Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 51% | 48.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.27 | 123.5 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1309 |
| LMCA | — | 4.5% |
| ForecastBench | 54.2 | — |
Math Gemma 3 12B leads
Claude 2.1: 10.2 (#315), Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.9% | 16.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1307 |
Knowledge Gemma 3 12B leads
Claude 2.1: 15.4 (#292), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 33% | 39.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.4% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1248 |
| MMLU | 73.5% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: —
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | — | 46.7% |
Multilingual Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1318 |
| LMArena German | — | 1370 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1335 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1299 |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1317 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1334 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1126 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1334 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude 2.1 better than Gemma 3 12B?
Gemma 3 12B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.1 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.
Is Claude 2.1 or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?
Gemma 3 12B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 31.7 versus 26.2 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Claude 2.1 and Gemma 3 12B share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude 2.1 has 7 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.