# Deepseek Coder v2 vs Gemma 3 12B

> Deepseek Coder v2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 35.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/deepseek-coder-v2-vs-gemma-3-12b
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Deepseek Coder v2 scores higher in 4 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Deepseek Coder v2 leads 34.9 to 22.3.

## Snapshot

| | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Google |
| Noometry Index | 35.9 | 32.1 |
| Rank | 220 | 262 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Deepseek Coder v2: 38.1 (#183)
- Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1251 | 1281 |
| SciCode | — | 17.4% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 48.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 59.7% | — |
| HumanEval+ | 82.3% | — |
| MBPP+ | 75.1% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Deepseek Coder v2: —
- Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 30.4% |

## Reasoning

- Deepseek Coder v2: 23.6 (#176)
- Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1207 | 1309 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| DTBench | — | 48.8% |
| LMCA | — | 4.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 123.5 |
| WinoGrande | 83.7% | — |

## Math

- Deepseek Coder v2: 34.9 (#190)
- Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1241 | 1307 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 16.7% |
| GSM8K | 94.5% | — |

## Knowledge

- Deepseek Coder v2: 32.3 (#212)
- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1181 | 1248 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 39.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.4% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 64.3% | — |

## Multimodal

- Deepseek Coder v2: —
- Gemma 3 12B: —

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | — | 46.7% |

## Multilingual

- Deepseek Coder v2: 36.3 (#240)
- Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1182 | 1318 |
| LMArena German | 1164 | 1370 |
| LMArena Russian | 1188 | 1335 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1201 | — |
| LMArena French | 1185 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1126 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1104 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1153 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Deepseek Coder v2: 61.7 (#242)
- Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1180 | 1299 |

## Long Context

- Deepseek Coder v2: 37.0 (#224)
- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1219 | 1317 |

## Writing & Preference

- Deepseek Coder v2: 38.2 (#253)
- Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209)

| Benchmark | Deepseek Coder v2 | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1191 | 1334 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1120 | 1331 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1177 | 1334 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1126 |

## FAQ

### Is Deepseek Coder v2 better than Gemma 3 12B?

Deepseek Coder v2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 35.9 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Deepseek Coder v2 or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

Deepseek Coder v2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.1 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Deepseek Coder v2 and Gemma 3 12B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Deepseek Coder v2 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.