Noometry

Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Qwen3.6 Flash

Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 5.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B Google

31.8

Rank #255 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Flash Alibaba (Qwen)

38.4

Rank #176 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Flash in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Flash leads 38.0 to 21.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 84.4% for Qwen3.6 Flash.
  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.19 / $1.13 for Qwen3.6 Flash.
  • Qwen3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Gemma 3 12B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
ProviderGoogleAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.838.4
Released2025-03-122026-04-27
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K1M
Max output8K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.19
Output $ / M tokens$0.15$1.13
Results tracked2413

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
SciCode17.4%—
LMArena Coding1281—
ALE-Bench—326.4

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard30.4%—

Reasoning Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307), Qwen3.6 Flash: 28.4 (#90)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
Chess Puzzles0%20%
DTBench48.8%77.1%
LMCA4.5%31%
Epoch Capabilities Index123.49143.26
SimpleBench—35.2%
CritPt0%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1309—
Mystery Game Puzzles—18%

Math Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273), Qwen3.6 Flash: 38.0 (#88)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.7%84.4%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—22.5%
LMArena Math1307—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—10.3%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250), Qwen3.6 Flash: 42.2 (#90)

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
GPQA Diamond39.5%83.3%
SimpleQA Verified—15.9%
Vectara Hallucination Rate4.4%—
LMArena Expert1248—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
MindCube46.7%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena German1370—
LMArena Russian1335—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Instruction Following1299—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Longer Query1317—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkGemma 3 12BQwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Text1334—
LMArena Creative Writing1331—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1126—
LMArena Multi-Turn1334—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Qwen3.6 Flash?

Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 5.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Qwen3.6 Flash?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Flash lists at $0.19 and $1.13.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 Flash does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Qwen3.6 Flash share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Flash has 13.

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