Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Mercury 2.5

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Google

41.5

Rank #133 Confirmed

Mercury 2.5 Inception

33.5

Rank #242 Reported

Summary

  • They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 3 categories and Mercury 2.5 in 0 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 27.8 to 22.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 13% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 3% for Mercury 2.5.
  • Mercury 2.5 is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 260K.

Side by side

Gemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
ProviderGoogleInception
Noometry Index41.533.5
Released2026-07-212026-09-08
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M260K
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.04
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$0.15
Results tracked394

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
SciCode41.3%38.5%
ALE-Bench765.27301.65
LMArena WebDev1440—
WeirdML39%—
LMArena Coding1453—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
APEX-Agents29.3%—
GDP.pdf10%—

Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
CritPt0%0%
ARC-AGI-210.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)60.4%—
ARC-AGI-153.5%—
Chess Puzzles22%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1441—
Mystery Game Puzzles19%—
DTBench83.5%—
LMCA37.6%—
Epoch Capabilities Index145.13—

Math Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272)

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
ProofBench13%3%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)26%—
FrontierMath Tier 40%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202571.1%—
LMArena Math1433—

Knowledge Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
GPQA Diamond83.3%—
LMArena Expert1435—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
LMArena Vision1268—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
LMArena Non-English1427—
LMArena Chinese1469—
LMArena French1451—
LMArena German1454—
LMArena Japanese1427—
LMArena Korean1407—
LMArena Russian1443—
LMArena Spanish1442—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
LMArena Instruction Following1420—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
LMArena Longer Query1435—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Mercury 2.5: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flash LiteMercury 2.5
LMArena Text1435—
LMArena Creative Writing1420—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1559—
LMArena Multi-Turn1445—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Mercury 2.5?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2.5 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Mercury 2.5?

Mercury 2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Mercury 2.5 better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 39.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 260K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Mercury 2.5 share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2.5 has 4.

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