Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs o3-mini
o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 26× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and o3-mini in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where o3-mini leads 38.3 to 26.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 76.9% for o3-mini.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
- o3-mini accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 36.7 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2024-12-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 200K |
| Max output | 8K | 100K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $1.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $4.40 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 51 |
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Category by category
Coding o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 17.4% | 39.8% |
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1378 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| CadEval | — | 54% |
Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1366 |
| DTBench | 48.8% | 68.8% |
| LMCA | 4.5% | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 140.34 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 3% |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 34.5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |
Math o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 76.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1396 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 77% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1364 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, o3-mini: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1319 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1303 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1304 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1379 |
| LMArena French | — | 1334 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1314 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |
Instruction Following o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1343 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
Writing & Preference o3-mini leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1286 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1320 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than o3-mini?
o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 26× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or o3-mini?
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.
Is Gemma 3 12B or o3-mini better for coding?
o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
o3-mini does, with 200K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and o3-mini share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.