Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite costs 2.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 32 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Google

40.8

Rank #144 Confirmed

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 32 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 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 22.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 8.2% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 83.1% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
  • Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.

Side by side

Gemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
ProviderGoogleGoogle
Noometry Index40.852.3
Released2026-03-032025-12-17
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M1.05M
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$0.50
Output $ / M tokens$1.50$3
Results tracked3859

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena WebDev12561439
WeirdML52.2%61.6%
LMArena Coding14001460
ALE-Bench797.731,367
SWE-bench Verified—75.4%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—75.8%
SWE-bench Multilingual—72.7%
SciCode41.9%—
GSO—9.8%

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
DeepResearch Bench37.3%49.8%
Terminal-Bench—64.3%
τ²-bench Airline—82.5%
τ²-bench Banking—27.3%
τ²-bench Retail—76.8%
τ²-bench Telecom—91.2%
BALROG—48.1%
GDP.pdf—10%
LMArena Search—1198
Vending-Bench 2—3,635

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
NYT Connections (extended)8.2%83.1%
Chess Puzzles25%40%
LMArena Hard Prompts14071465
DTBench76.8%89.1%
LMCA35%43.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index144.47151.8
ForecastBench54.458.5
ARC-AGI-2—33.6%
SimpleBench—61.1%
Kagi LLM Benchmark67.2%—
ARC-AGI-1—84.7%
CritPt1.1%—
EnigmaEval3%—
Thematic Generalization63.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles—26%

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)27.7%51.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202580%95.6%
LMArena Math14281473
FrontierMath Tier 4—17.1%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—67.6%
ProofBench—15%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—35.6%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—4.2%

Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
GPQA Diamond81.8%89.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate8.2%13.5%
LMArena Expert13981462
Humanity's Last Exam8.6%—
SimpleQA Verified—66.8%

Multimodal Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Vision12401285
GeoBench—88%
VPCT—72.6%
Blueprint-Bench 2—0%
LMArena Document—1413

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Non-English14111458
LMArena Chinese14611511
LMArena French14241477
LMArena German14291497
LMArena Japanese14131489
LMArena Korean13921443
LMArena Russian14201480
LMArena Spanish14211469

Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Instruction Following13771437

Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Longer Query13941452

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94), Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45)

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3 Flash Preview
LMArena Text14161466
LMArena Creative Writing14011457
LMArena Multi-Turn14171471

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Gemini 3 Flash Preview?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite costs 2.0× 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 3.1 Flash Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Gemini 3 Flash Preview better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1.05M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Gemini 3 Flash Preview share?

32 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59.

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