Model comparison

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.5 27B

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 23 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Google

37.0

Rank #211 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

41.9

Rank #127 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 9 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in multimodal, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 39.4 to 29.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 62.8% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 82.4% for Qwen3.5 27B.
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 27B.
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.5 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Qwen3.5 27B specifications
Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
ProviderGoogleAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index37.041.9
Released2025-06-172026-02-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M262K
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.10$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$0.40$2.40
Results tracked3328

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
WeirdML35.2%39.5%
LMArena Coding13731427
ALE-Bench325.9349.45
LMArena WebDev—1358

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Qwen3.5 27B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard36.9%—
Vending-Bench 2—201.98

Reasoning Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Hard Prompts13771414
DTBench62.8%82.4%
LMCA18.1%34%
Kagi LLM Benchmark40.5%—
NYT Connections (extended)—47.9%
Thematic Generalization—45.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index133.94—

Math Too close to call

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Math13731429
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56.7%
Omni-MATH48%—

Knowledge Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
Vectara Hallucination Rate3.3%12.1%
LMArena Expert13731428
MMLU-Pro53.7%—
GPQA (HELM)30.9%—

Multimodal Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Vision11981241
VPCT30%—

Multilingual Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Non-English13691390
LMArena Chinese14041478
LMArena French13881410
LMArena German13891393
LMArena Japanese13591345
LMArena Korean13601358
LMArena Russian13731390
LMArena Spanish13961407

Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Instruction Following13671393
IFEval81%—

Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Longer Query13731413
Fiction.LiveBench47.2%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 27B
LMArena Text13791409
LMArena Creative Writing13671362
LMArena Multi-Turn13661410
WildBench81.8%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3.5 27B?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 27B lists at $0.30 and $2.40.

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (38.5 vs 38.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Qwen3.5 27B share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.

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