Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Llama 3.1-8B

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 26× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 27 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.6 Flash Google

54.1

Rank #33 Confirmed

Llama 3.1-8B Meta

23.0

Rank #352 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 27 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.1-8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 67.8 to 8.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 94.2% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 1.7% for Llama 3.1-8B.
  • Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 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 128K.
  • Llama 3.1-8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
ProviderGoogleMeta
Noometry Index54.123.0
Released2026-07-212024-07-23
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M128K
Max output66K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.75$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$3.75$0.08
Results tracked4643

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 50.0 (#48), Llama 3.1-8B: 20.2 (#340)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
SciCode52.7%13.2%
WeirdML56.1%1.7%
LMArena Coding14911195
DeepSWE46.7%—
FrontierCode34.4%—
LMArena WebDev1538—
BigCodeBench Instruct—32.8%
BigCodeBench Complete—40.5%
ALE-Bench715.52—
HumanEval+—62.8%
MBPP+—55.6%

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.3 (#65), Llama 3.1-8B: 22.5 (#131)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
APEX-Agents46.9%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—25.8%
BALROG—15.1%
GDP.pdf14%—

Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.8 (#22), Llama 3.1-8B: 14.9 (#321)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
CritPt10.6%0%
Chess Puzzles43%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts14851175
DTBench95.5%50.9%
LMCA44.9%5.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index154.25116.57
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)89%—
ARC-AGI-191.2%—
Mystery Game Puzzles30%—
PIQA—81.2%

Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.3 (#40), Llama 3.1-8B: 10.2 (#317)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.2%1.7%
LMArena Math15051179
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)58.9%—
FrontierMath Tier 422%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions70.8%—
ProofBench36%—
Omni-MATH—13.7%
MATH Level 5—22.9%
GSM8K—82.4%

Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#8), Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#307)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
GPQA Diamond94.1%27%
LMArena Expert14881144
SimpleQA Verified66.2%—
MMLU-Pro—40.6%
GPQA (HELM)—24.7%
BoolQ—82.8%
MMLU—56.1%

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.5 (#64), Llama 3.1-8B: —

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
LMArena Vision1298—
Blueprint-Bench 231.2%—
Furniture Assembly23.3%—
LMArena Document1456—

Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.5 (#19), Llama 3.1-8B: 34.0 (#249)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
LMArena Non-English14691148
LMArena Chinese15311151
LMArena French15041177
LMArena German14781144
LMArena Japanese14761061
LMArena Korean14311053
LMArena Russian14871158
LMArena Spanish14751169

Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.0 (#33), Llama 3.1-8B: 58.9 (#258)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
LMArena Instruction Following14661159
IFEval—74.3%

Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#50), Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#238)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
LMArena Longer Query14741182

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.2 (#27), Llama 3.1-8B: 29.7 (#290)

BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashLlama 3.1-8B
LMArena Text14791187
LMArena Creative Writing14651154
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1604713
LMArena Multi-Turn14811172
WildBench—68.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Llama 3.1-8B?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 26× 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 Llama 3.1-8B?

Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Llama 3.1-8B better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.0 versus 20.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and Llama 3.1-8B share?

27 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-8B has 43.

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