Model comparison

Gemini 3.5 Flash vs o3-mini

Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.2 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 36 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Google

54.2

Rank #32 Confirmed

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 36 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher in 8 categories and o3-mini in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 62.8 to 16.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 72.1% for Gemini 3.5 Flash and 3% for o3-mini.
  • o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10 / $4.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $9 for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 200K.

Side by side

Gemini 3.5 Flash and o3-mini specifications
Gemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Noometry Index54.236.7
Released2026-05-192024-12-20
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M200K
Max output66K100K
Input $ / M tokens$1.50$1.10
Output $ / M tokens$9$4.40
Results tracked5451

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 49.4 (#49), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
SciCode53.1%39.8%
WeirdML62.6%43.7%
LMArena Coding14921378
SWE-bench Verified79.3%—
DeepSWE37.4%—
Aider Polyglot—60.4%
LMArena WebDev1499—
GSO—1.3%
LiveBench Coding—82.7%
CadEval—54%
ALE-Bench911.02—

Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 24.7 (#114), o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
APEX-Agents27.5%—
Cybench—22.5%
GBAEval6.7%—
GDP.pdf14%—
Vending-Bench 25,396—

Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 62.8 (#18), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
ARC-AGI-272.1%3%
SimpleBench76.7%22.8%
ARC-AGI-192.5%34.5%
CritPt13.1%0.3%
Chess Puzzles50%17%
LMArena Hard Prompts14881366
Mystery Game Puzzles32%7%
DTBench94.7%68.8%
LMCA47.1%19%
Epoch Capabilities Index154.46140.34
ForecastBench5959.6
NYT Connections (extended)92.6%—
EnigmaEval25.4%—
EBR-Bench4.8%—
LiveBench Reasoning—89.6%
LiveBench Data Analysis—70.6%
Surface Evolver Bench58.1%—
LiveBench—75.9%

Math Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 60.7 (#36), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

Knowledge Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 66.3 (#11), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
GPQA Diamond92.8%77%
SimpleQA Verified66.2%15.3%
LMArena Expert14951364
Confabulations—17.9%

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.7 (#15), o3-mini: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
LMArena Vision1310—
Blueprint-Bench 233.6%—
LMArena Document1463—

Multilingual Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 57.0 (#13), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
LMArena Non-English14761319
LMArena Chinese15261379
LMArena French14901334
LMArena German14921303
LMArena Japanese14861286
LMArena Korean14511314
LMArena Russian14931304
LMArena Spanish14801321

Instruction Following Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 77.0 (#30), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
LMArena Instruction Following14671337
LiveBench Instruction Following—84.4%

Long Context Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.4 (#38), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
LMArena Longer Query14821343
Fiction.LiveBench—50%

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.5 Flash leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash: 65.5 (#47), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.5 Flasho3-mini
LMArena Text14821337
LMArena Creative Writing14701286
LMArena Multi-Turn14811320
Short-Story Creative Writing—61.7%
EQ-Bench 41087—
LiveBench Language—50.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash better than o3-mini?

Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.2 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash or o3-mini?

o3-mini is cheaper. It lists at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash lists at $1.50 and $9.

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash or o3-mini better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.4 versus 40.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash and o3-mini share?

36 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash has 54 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.

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