Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite vs Gemma 3 12B

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.8 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite Google

37.8

Rank #194 Confirmed

Gemma 3 12B Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads 34.1 to 22.3.
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
ProviderGoogleGoogle
Noometry Index37.832.1
Released2025-02-052025-03-12
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—8K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.05
Output $ / M tokens—$0.15
Results tracked3224

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 37.9 (#185), Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Coding13221281
SciCode—17.4%
LiveBench Coding47.1%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: —, Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—30.4%

Reasoning Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 22.0 (#210), Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Hard Prompts13241309
DTBench52.5%48.8%
CritPt—0%
Chess Puzzles—0%
LiveBench Reasoning50.1%—
LiveBench Data Analysis65.5%—
LMCA—4.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index—123.5
ForecastBench57.1—
LiveBench54.3%—

Math Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 34.1 (#196), Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Math13091307
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—16.7%
Omni-MATH37.4%—
LiveBench Math58.1%—

Knowledge Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 35.0 (#189), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Expert13051248
GPQA Diamond—39.5%
MMLU-Pro72%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—4.4%
GPQA (HELM)50%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 31.2 (#109), Gemma 3 12B: —

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Vision1100—
MindCube—46.7%

Multilingual Too close to call

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 46.0 (#161), Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Non-English13231318
LMArena German13061370
LMArena Russian13281335
LMArena Chinese1339—
LMArena French1347—
LMArena Japanese1301—
LMArena Korean1325—
LMArena Spanish1313—

Instruction Following Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 70.4 (#163), Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Instruction Following13051299
LiveBench Instruction Following78.3%—
IFEval82.4%—

Long Context Too close to call

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 40.1 (#160), Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Longer Query13201317

Writing & Preference Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: 51.7 (#177), Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)

BenchmarkGemini 2.0 Flash-LiteGemma 3 12B
LMArena Text13301334
LMArena Creative Writing13191331
LMArena Multi-Turn13071334
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1126
WildBench79%—
LiveBench Language34.3%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite better than Gemma 3 12B?

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.8 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.9 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite and Gemma 3 12B share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite has 32 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.

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