Model comparison
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Sonar
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
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PerplexitySummary
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads 56.8 to 52.6.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $1 for Sonar.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Perplexity | |
| Noometry Index | 37.0 | 38.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-17 | 2024-01-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 128K |
| Max output | 66K | 4K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $1 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 7 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Sonar: 35.7 (#221)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 35.2% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Sonar: 21.1 (#227)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | — |
| DTBench | 62.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 18.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.94 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |
Math Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Sonar: 33.7 (#200)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1373 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | — |
| VPCT | 30% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | — |
| LMArena French | 1388 | — |
| LMArena German | 1389 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | — |
Instruction Following Sonar leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Sonar: 71.4 (#150)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| IFEval | 81% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1367 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Sonar: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | — |
Writing & Preference Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Sonar: 52.6 (#167)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1367 | — |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1366 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Sonar?
Sonar is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.5 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Sonar's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Sonar?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Sonar lists at $1 and $1.
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Sonar better for coding?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.5 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Sonar share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.