Model comparison
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs o3-mini
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 32 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 32 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 9 categories and o3-mini in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.8 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 60.4% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 3% for o3-mini.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper at $0.75 / $3.75 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 200K.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Noometry Index | 54.1 | 36.7 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2024-12-20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 200K |
| Max output | 66K | 100K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.75 | $1.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3.75 | $4.40 |
| Results tracked | 46 | 51 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 50.0 (#48), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 52.7% | 39.8% |
| WeirdML | 56.1% | 43.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1491 | 1378 |
| DeepSWE | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierCode | 34.4% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1538 | — |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| CadEval | — | 54% |
| ALE-Bench | 715.52 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.3 (#65), o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 46.9% | — |
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.8 (#22), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | 3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 91.2% | 34.5% |
| CritPt | 10.6% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 43% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1485 | 1366 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 30% | 7% |
| DTBench | 95.5% | 68.8% |
| LMCA | 44.9% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.25 | 140.34 |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 89% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |
Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.3 (#40), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 58.9% | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 22% | 0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.2% | 76.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1505 | 1396 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 70.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 36% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#8), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | 15.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1488 | 1364 |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.5 (#64), o3-mini: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1298 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 31.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 23.3% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1456 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.5 (#19), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1469 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1531 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | 1504 | 1334 |
| LMArena German | 1478 | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1476 | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | 1431 | 1314 |
| LMArena Russian | 1487 | 1304 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1475 | 1321 |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.0 (#33), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1466 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#50), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1474 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.2 (#27), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1479 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1481 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1604 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than o3-mini?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or o3-mini?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or o3-mini better for coding?
Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.0 versus 40.8 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and o3-mini share?
32 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.