Model comparison

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemma 3 12B

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.0 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 17 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

Google

37.0

Rank #211 Confirmed

Gemma 3 12B

Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Summary

They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads 38.0 to 22.3.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 62.8% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 48.8% for Gemma 3 12B.
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.40 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite.
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Gemma 3 12B specifications
	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
Provider	Google	Google
Noometry Index	37.0	32.1
Released	2025-06-17	2025-03-12
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1.05M	131K
Max output	66K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.10	$0.05
Output $ / M tokens	$0.40	$0.15
Results tracked	33	24

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Coding	1373	1281
SciCode	—	17.4%
WeirdML	35.2%	—
ALE-Bench	325.9	—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	36.9%	30.4%

Reasoning Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Hard Prompts	1377	1309
DTBench	62.8%	48.8%
LMCA	18.1%	4.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	133.94	123.5
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.5%	—
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	—	0%

Math Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Math	1373	1307
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	16.7%
Omni-MATH	48%	—

Knowledge Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
Vectara Hallucination Rate	3.3%	4.4%
LMArena Expert	1373	1248
GPQA Diamond	—	39.5%
MMLU-Pro	53.7%	—
GPQA (HELM)	30.9%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Gemma 3 12B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Vision	1198	—
VPCT	30%	—
MindCube	—	46.7%

Multilingual Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Non-English	1369	1318
LMArena German	1389	1370
LMArena Russian	1373	1335
LMArena Chinese	1404	—
LMArena French	1388	—
LMArena Japanese	1359	—
LMArena Korean	1360	—
LMArena Spanish	1396	—

Instruction Following Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Instruction Following	1367	1299
IFEval	81%	—

Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Longer Query	1373	1317
Fiction.LiveBench	47.2%	—

Writing & Preference Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Text	1379	1334
LMArena Creative Writing	1367	1331
LMArena Multi-Turn	1366	1334
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1126
WildBench	81.8%	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Gemma 3 12B?

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemma 3 12B?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite lists at $0.10 and $0.40.

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.5 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Gemma 3 12B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.