# Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.5 Flash

> Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 19× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-2-5-flash-lite-vs-gemini-3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 23

## Summary

- They share 23 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 1 category and Gemini 3.5 Flash in 9 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 62.7 to 21.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 62.8% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 94.7% for Gemini 3.5 Flash.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $9 for Gemini 3.5 Flash.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Google |
| Noometry Index | 36.4 | 54.1 |
| Rank | 208 | 29 |
| Context | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $0.40 | $9 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#167)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 49.1 (#46)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 35.2% | 62.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | 1492 |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | 911.02 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 79.3% |
| DeepSWE | — | 37.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1499 |
| SciCode | — | 53.1% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 27.8 (#89)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 24.8 (#107)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 27.5% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
| GBAEval | — | 6.7% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 14% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,396 |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 21.5 (#196)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 62.7 (#16)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | 1488 |
| DTBench | 62.8% | 94.7% |
| LMCA | 18.1% | 47.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.93 | 154.55 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 72.1% |
| SimpleBench | — | 76.7% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 92.6% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 92.5% |
| CritPt | — | 13.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 50% |
| EnigmaEval | — | 25.4% |
| EBR-Bench | — | 4.8% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 32% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 58.1% |
| ForecastBench | — | 59 |

## Math

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 35.5 (#144)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 60.5 (#30)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1502 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 62.8% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 26.8% |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 76.3% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 95.6% |
| ProofBench | — | 31% |
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 39% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 14.6% |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.1 (#206)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 66.3 (#10)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | 1493 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 92.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 66.2% |
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.6 (#109)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.7 (#13)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | 1311 |
| VPCT | 30% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 33.6% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1463 |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.5 (#129)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 57.1 (#12)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | 1475 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | 1525 |
| LMArena French | 1388 | 1490 |
| LMArena German | 1390 | 1500 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | 1481 |
| LMArena Korean | 1358 | 1453 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1491 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | 1478 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.2 (#163)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 77.2 (#29)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1366 | 1466 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#257)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 45.3 (#39)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | 1481 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 57.0 (#130)
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: 65.5 (#46)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | 1481 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1366 | 1467 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1367 | 1482 |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1087 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Gemini 3.5 Flash?

Gemini 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 36.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 19× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.5 Flash?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash lists at $1.50 and $9.

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.5 Flash better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.1 versus 38.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1.05M tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Gemini 3.5 Flash share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.5 Flash has 54.