Model comparison
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Gemma 2 9B
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Gemma 2 9B in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 50.1 to 9.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 0.6% for Gemma 2 9B.
- Gemma 2 9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Noometry Index | 41.5 | 25.9 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2024-06-24 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | — |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | — |
| Results tracked | 39 | 35 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Gemma 2 9B: 29.4 (#304)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1453 | 1173 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1440 | — |
| SciCode | 41.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 39% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 34.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 22.5% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 40.6% |
| ALE-Bench | 765.27 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Gemma 2 9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 29.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Gemma 2 9B: 15.9 (#309)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1441 | 1171 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.13 | 119.83 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 10.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 53.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 22% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.2% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| DTBench | 83.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 36.4% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |
| LiveBench | — | 28.7% |
| PIQA | — | 83.7% |
Math Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Gemma 2 9B: 9.9 (#318)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | 0.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1433 | 1183 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 26% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | — |
| ProofBench | 13% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 19.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 21% |
| GSM8K | — | 84.9% |
Knowledge Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Gemma 2 9B: 9.7 (#305)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 83.3% | 27.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1435 | 1147 |
| BoolQ | — | 85.7% |
| MMLU | — | 72.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Gemma 2 9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1268 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Gemma 2 9B: 36.6 (#238)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1427 | 1188 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1469 | 1185 |
| LMArena French | 1451 | 1190 |
| LMArena German | 1454 | 1186 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1427 | 1144 |
| LMArena Korean | 1407 | 1137 |
| LMArena Russian | 1443 | 1200 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | 1200 |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Gemma 2 9B: 57.6 (#269)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1178 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 52.6% |
Long Context Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Gemma 2 9B: 36.3 (#233)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1435 | 1197 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Gemma 2 9B: 32.1 (#281)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1435 | 1207 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1420 | 1206 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1559 | 841 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1445 | 1193 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 25.5% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Gemma 2 9B?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Gemma 2 9B better for coding?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 29.4 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Gemma 2 9B share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 2 9B has 35.