Model comparison

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Phi-4

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 6.4× 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 . 22 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Google

40.8

Rank #144 Confirmed

Phi-4 Microsoft

31.2

Rank #279 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 9 categories and Phi-4 in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 60.9 to 40.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 80% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 13.8% for Phi-4.
  • Phi-4 is cheaper at $0.07 / $0.14 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 128K.
  • Phi-4 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Phi-4 specifications
Gemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
ProviderGoogleMicrosoft
Noometry Index40.831.2
Released2026-03-032024-12-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M128K
Max output66K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$0.07
Output $ / M tokens$1.50$0.14
Results tracked3837

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188), Phi-4: 34.4 (#239)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Coding14001231
LMArena WebDev1256—
SciCode41.9%—
WeirdML52.2%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.5%
LiveBench Coding—30.7%
BigCodeBench Complete—55.4%
ALE-Bench797.73—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79), Phi-4: 22.8 (#128)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—28.8%
DeepResearch Bench37.3%—
BALROG—11.6%

Reasoning Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186), Phi-4: 17.7 (#291)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
Chess Puzzles25%1%
LMArena Hard Prompts14071220
Epoch Capabilities Index144.47130.42
Kagi LLM Benchmark67.2%—
NYT Connections (extended)8.2%—
CritPt1.1%—
EnigmaEval3%—
Thematic Generalization63.3%—
LiveBench Reasoning—47.8%
DTBench76.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis—45.2%
LMCA35%—
ForecastBench54.4—
LiveBench—41.6%

Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90), Phi-4: 20.8 (#285)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202580%13.8%
LMArena Math14281246
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)27.7%—
LiveBench Math—42%
MATH Level 5—64.9%

Knowledge Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104), Phi-4: 32.6 (#209)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
GPQA Diamond81.8%56.1%
Vectara Hallucination Rate8.2%3.7%
LMArena Expert13981203
Humanity's Last Exam8.6%—
Confabulations—29.4%
MMLU—84.8%

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60), Phi-4: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Vision1240—

Multilingual Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86), Phi-4: 37.2 (#237)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Non-English14111197
LMArena Chinese14611212
LMArena French14241224
LMArena German14291222
LMArena Japanese14131158
LMArena Korean13921151
LMArena Russian14201209
LMArena Spanish14211234

Instruction Following Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131), Phi-4: 60.4 (#251)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Instruction Following13771201
LiveBench Instruction Following—58.4%

Long Context Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122), Phi-4: 36.9 (#226)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Longer Query13941217

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94), Phi-4: 40.5 (#244)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash LitePhi-4
LMArena Text14161217
LMArena Creative Writing14011182
LMArena Multi-Turn14171206
Short-Story Creative Writing—62.6%
LiveBench Language—25.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Phi-4?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Phi-4?

Phi-4 is cheaper. It lists at $0.07 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.

Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Phi-4 better for coding?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.8 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Phi-4 share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.

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