Model comparison

Gemini 3.6 Flash vs gpt-oss-120b

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.0 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 30 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.6 Flash Google

54.1

Rank #30 Confirmed

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.0

Rank #210 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 30 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 9 categories and gpt-oss-120b in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.9 to 19.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is APEX-Agents: 46.9% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 4.4% for gpt-oss-120b.
  • gpt-oss-120b is cheaper at $0.037 / $0.17 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
  • Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
  • gpt-oss-120b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.6 Flash and gpt-oss-120b specifications
Gemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
ProviderGoogleOpenAI
Noometry Index54.136.0
Released2026-07-212025-08-05
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M131K
Max output66K41K
Input $ / M tokens$0.75$0.037
Output $ / M tokens$3.75$0.17
Results tracked4648

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 49.6 (#45), gpt-oss-120b: 33.2 (#251)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
SciCode52.7%36%
WeirdML56.1%48.2%
LMArena Coding14921380
ALE-Bench715.52575.62
DeepSWE46.7%—
FrontierCode34.4%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—26%
Aider Polyglot—41.8%
LMArena WebDev1536—
AlgoTune—1.41

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.4 (#56), gpt-oss-120b: 12.1 (#145)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
APEX-Agents46.9%4.4%
Terminal-Bench—18.7%
GDP.pdf14%—
METR Time Horizons—56.6%
Vending-Bench 2—-21.53

Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.9 (#20), gpt-oss-120b: 19.5 (#236)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
CritPt10.6%1.1%
Chess Puzzles43%20%
LMArena Hard Prompts14861364
Mystery Game Puzzles30%2%
DTBench95.5%76.3%
LMCA44.9%22.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index154.36139.94
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
SimpleBench—22.1%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—58.6%
NYT Connections (extended)89%—
ARC-AGI-191.2%—
Surface Evolver Bench—25%

Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.0 (#33), gpt-oss-120b: 50.6 (#43)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.2%88.9%
LMArena Math15041388
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)58.9%—
FrontierMath Tier 422%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions70.8%—
ProofBench36%—
Omni-MATH—68.8%

Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#7), gpt-oss-120b: 42.3 (#89)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
GPQA Diamond94.1%75.8%
LMArena Expert14891356
SimpleQA Verified66.2%—
MMLU-Pro—79.5%
Confabulations—15.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—14.2%
GPQA (HELM)—68.4%

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.7 (#55), gpt-oss-120b: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
LMArena Vision1297—
Blueprint-Bench 231.2%—
Furniture Assembly23.3%—
LMArena Document1456—

Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.8 (#17), gpt-oss-120b: 48.2 (#142)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
LMArena Non-English14701350
LMArena Chinese15301384
LMArena French15011370
LMArena German14781355
LMArena Japanese14771332
LMArena Korean14351283
LMArena Russian14901343
LMArena Spanish14771388

Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.2 (#27), gpt-oss-120b: 69.5 (#168)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
LMArena Instruction Following14671318
IFEval—83.6%

Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#47), gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#273)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
LMArena Longer Query14751319
Fiction.LiveBench—44.4%

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.3 (#26), gpt-oss-120b: 46.7 (#213)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 Flashgpt-oss-120b
LMArena Text14781366
LMArena Creative Writing14641274
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1604961
LMArena Multi-Turn14811340
Short-Story Creative Writing—77.1%
WildBench—84.5%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than gpt-oss-120b?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.0 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or gpt-oss-120b?

gpt-oss-120b is cheaper. It lists at $0.037 per million input tokens and $0.17 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or gpt-oss-120b better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.6 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and gpt-oss-120b share?

30 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and gpt-oss-120b has 48.

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