Model comparison
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
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MicrosoftSummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 7 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 64.2 to 31.1.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | |
| Noometry Index | 41.5 | 29.3 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2024-04-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | — |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | — |
| Results tracked | 39 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1453 | 1101 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1440 | — |
| SciCode | 41.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 39% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| ALE-Bench | 765.27 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 29.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1441 | 1100 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 10.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 53.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 22% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| DTBench | 83.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.13 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |
Math Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1433 | 1151 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 26% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 13% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
Knowledge Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1435 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 83.3% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1268 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1427 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1469 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1451 | 1135 |
| LMArena German | 1454 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1427 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1407 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1443 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | 1111 |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |
Long Context Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1435 | 1088 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1435 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1420 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1445 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1559 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.