Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Google

37.0

Rank #211 Confirmed

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Gemini 3 Flash Preview in 10 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 22.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is VPCT: 30% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 72.6% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.

Side by side

Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
ProviderGoogleGoogle
Noometry Index37.052.3
Released2025-06-172025-12-17
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M1.05M
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.10$0.50
Output $ / M tokens$0.40$3
Results tracked3359

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
WeirdML35.2%61.6%
LMArena Coding13731460
ALE-Bench325.91,367
SWE-bench Verified—75.4%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—75.8%
LMArena WebDev—1439
SWE-bench Multilingual—72.7%
GSO—9.8%

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
Terminal-Bench—64.3%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard36.9%—
τ²-bench Airline—82.5%
τ²-bench Banking—27.3%
τ²-bench Retail—76.8%
τ²-bench Telecom—91.2%
DeepResearch Bench—49.8%
BALROG—48.1%
GDP.pdf—10%
LMArena Search—1198
Vending-Bench 2—3,635

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Hard Prompts13771465
DTBench62.8%89.1%
LMCA18.1%43.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index133.94151.8
ARC-AGI-2—33.6%
SimpleBench—61.1%
Kagi LLM Benchmark40.5%—
NYT Connections (extended)—83.1%
ARC-AGI-1—84.7%
Chess Puzzles—40%
Mystery Game Puzzles—26%
ForecastBench—58.5

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Math13731473
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—51.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4—17.1%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—67.6%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—95.6%
ProofBench—15%
Omni-MATH48%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—35.6%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—4.2%

Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
Vectara Hallucination Rate3.3%13.5%
LMArena Expert13731462
GPQA Diamond—89.4%
SimpleQA Verified—66.8%
MMLU-Pro53.7%—
GPQA (HELM)30.9%—

Multimodal Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Vision11981285
VPCT30%72.6%
GeoBench—88%
Blueprint-Bench 2—0%
LMArena Document—1413

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Non-English13691458
LMArena Chinese14041511
LMArena French13881477
LMArena German13891497
LMArena Japanese13591489
LMArena Korean13601443
LMArena Russian13731480
LMArena Spanish13961469

Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Instruction Following13671437
IFEval81%—

Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Longer Query13731452
Fiction.LiveBench47.2%—

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45)

BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Text13791466
LMArena Creative Writing13671457
LMArena Multi-Turn13661471
WildBench81.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Gemini 3 Flash Preview?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 38.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1.05M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Gemini 3 Flash Preview share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59.

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