Model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Gemma 3 12B

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.4 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 21 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

Google

40.4

Rank #141 Confirmed

Gemma 3 12B

Google

31.8

Rank #255 Confirmed

Summary

They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 9 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 39.5 to 21.0.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 80% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B.
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
Gemini 3.1 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 3.1 Flash Lite and Gemma 3 12B specifications
	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
Provider	Google	Google
Noometry Index	40.4	31.8
Released	2026-03-03	2025-03-12
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1.05M	131K
Max output	66K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.05
Output $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.15
Results tracked	38	24

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.5 (#179), Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
SciCode	41.9%	17.4%
LMArena Coding	1400	1281
LMArena WebDev	1256	—
WeirdML	52.2%	—
ALE-Bench	797.73	—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 29.9 (#72), Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	30.4%
DeepResearch Bench	37.3%	—

Reasoning Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.3 (#181), Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
CritPt	1.1%	0%
Chess Puzzles	25%	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1407	1309
DTBench	76.8%	48.8%
LMCA	35%	4.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	144.45	123.49
Kagi LLM Benchmark	67.2%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	8.2%	—
EnigmaEval	3%	—
Thematic Generalization	63.3%	—
ForecastBench	54.4	—

Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.5 (#82), Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	80%	16.7%
LMArena Math	1427	1307
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	27.7%	—

Knowledge Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.7 (#95), Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
GPQA Diamond	81.8%	39.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	8.2%	4.4%
LMArena Expert	1397	1248
Humanity's Last Exam	8.6%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 38.7 (#57), Gemma 3 12B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Vision	1240	—
MindCube	—	46.7%

Multilingual Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.5 (#82), Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Non-English	1410	1318
LMArena German	1429	1370
LMArena Russian	1420	1335
LMArena Chinese	1461	—
LMArena French	1423	—
LMArena Japanese	1411	—
LMArena Korean	1393	—
LMArena Spanish	1420	—

Instruction Following Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.9 (#126), Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Instruction Following	1376	1299

Long Context Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#117), Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Longer Query	1394	1317

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 61.0 (#90), Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 12B
LMArena Text	1416	1334
LMArena Creative Writing	1401	1331
LMArena Multi-Turn	1417	1334
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1126

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Gemma 3 12B?

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 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 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.5 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Gemma 3 12B share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.