Model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Gemma 3 27B

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 5.6× 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. 28 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

Google

40.8

Rank #144 Confirmed

Gemma 3 27B

Google

30.8

Rank #284 Confirmed

Summary

They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 10 categories and Gemma 3 27B in 0 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 41.9 to 25.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 80% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B.
Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 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 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Gemma 3 27B specifications
	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
Provider	Google	Google
Noometry Index	40.8	30.8
Released	2026-03-03	2025-03-11
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1.05M	131K
Max output	66K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.08
Output $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.16
Results tracked	38	43

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188), Gemma 3 27B: 22.5 (#334)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
SciCode	41.9%	21.2%
LMArena Coding	1400	1322
Aider Polyglot	—	4.9%
LMArena WebDev	1256	—
WeirdML	52.2%	—
LiveBench Coding	—	39.9%
ALE-Bench	797.73	—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79), Gemma 3 27B: 25.1 (#110)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	29.5%
DeepResearch Bench	37.3%	—

Reasoning Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186), Gemma 3 27B: 16.7 (#301)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
Kagi LLM Benchmark	67.2%	40.4%
CritPt	1.1%	0%
Chess Puzzles	25%	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1407	1340
DTBench	76.8%	52.5%
LMCA	35%	12.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index	144.47	130.04
NYT Connections (extended)	8.2%	—
EnigmaEval	3%	—
Thematic Generalization	63.3%	—
LiveBench Reasoning	—	43.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	51.5%
ForecastBench	54.4	—
LiveBench	—	50%

Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90), Gemma 3 27B: 25.9 (#265)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	80%	22.5%
LMArena Math	1428	1312
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	27.7%	—
LiveBench Math	—	55.4%
MATH Level 5	—	74%

Knowledge Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104), Gemma 3 27B: 25.5 (#261)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
GPQA Diamond	81.8%	47.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	8.2%	7.4%
LMArena Expert	1398	1304
Humanity's Last Exam	8.6%	—
Confabulations	—	40.3%

Multimodal Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60), Gemma 3 27B: 32.6 (#100)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
LMArena Vision	1240	1164
GeoBench	—	52%

Multilingual Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86), Gemma 3 27B: 46.9 (#155)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
LMArena Non-English	1411	1334
LMArena Chinese	1461	1346
LMArena French	1424	1368
LMArena German	1429	1362
LMArena Japanese	1413	1287
LMArena Korean	1392	1308
LMArena Russian	1420	1349
LMArena Spanish	1421	1349

Instruction Following Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131), Gemma 3 27B: 70.6 (#160)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
LMArena Instruction Following	1377	1321
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	74.9%

Long Context Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122), Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#293)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
LMArena Longer Query	1394	1333
Fiction.LiveBench	—	33.3%

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94), Gemma 3 27B: 52.5 (#168)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite	Gemma 3 27B
LMArena Text	1416	1358
LMArena Creative Writing	1401	1346
LMArena Multi-Turn	1417	1345
Short-Story Creative Writing	—	79.9%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	1266
LiveBench Language	—	34.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Gemma 3 27B?

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Gemma 3 27B?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 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 27B better for coding?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.8 versus 22.5 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 27B share?

28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 27B has 43.