Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 41.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 34 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Google

41.5

Rank #133 Confirmed

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) xAI

48.6

Rank #54 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 34 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 2 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.3 to 27.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 10.3% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 65.1% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

Side by side

Gemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
ProviderGooglexAI
Noometry Index41.548.6
Released2026-07-212026-02-17
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M1M
Max output66K30K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$1.25
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$2.50
Results tracked3946

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena WebDev14401375
WeirdML39%52.3%
LMArena Coding14531459
ALE-Bench765.271,150
SciCode41.3%—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
Terminal-Bench—57.3%
APEX-Agents29.3%—
τ²-bench Banking—18%
GDP.pdf10%—
LMArena Search—1189
Vending-Bench 2—4,663

Reasoning Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
ARC-AGI-210.3%65.1%
NYT Connections (extended)60.4%85.4%
ARC-AGI-153.5%89.5%
Chess Puzzles22%24%
LMArena Hard Prompts14411451
DTBench83.5%90.1%
LMCA37.6%38.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index145.13151.98
Kagi LLM Benchmark—75%
CritPt0%—
Thematic Generalization—63.8%
Mystery Game Puzzles19%—
ForecastBench—61.4

Math Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)26%44.9%
FrontierMath Tier 40%17.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202571.1%92.2%
ProofBench13%14%
LMArena Math14331455

Knowledge Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
GPQA Diamond83.3%89.3%
LMArena Expert14351439
SimpleQA Verified—30.2%

Multimodal Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Vision12681263
Blueprint-Bench 2—0%
LMArena Document—1416

Multilingual Too close to call

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Non-English14271441
LMArena Chinese14691481
LMArena French14511476
LMArena German14541465
LMArena Japanese14271449
LMArena Korean14071417
LMArena Russian14431458
LMArena Spanish14421443

Instruction Following Too close to call

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Instruction Following14201420

Long Context Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Longer Query14351437
CL-bench—22.2%
CL-bench Life—11.9%

Writing & Preference Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteGrok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
LMArena Text14351451
LMArena Creative Writing14201438
EQ-Bench Creative Writing15591574
LMArena Multi-Turn14451456

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 41.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (42.4 vs 42.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

34 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.

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