# Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

> Gemini 3.8 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.5 to 36.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.8 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-2-5-flash-lite-vs-gemini-3-8-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 22

## Summary

- They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Gemini 3.8 Flash in 10 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.8 Flash leads 64.7 to 21.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LMCA: 18.1% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 52.9% for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.8 Flash.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Google |
| Noometry Index | 36.4 | 59.5 |
| Rank | 208 | 13 |
| Context | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $0.75 |
| Output $/M | $0.40 | $3.75 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#167)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 56.4 (#17)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | 1512 |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | 1,270 |
| DeepSWE | — | 73.8% |
| FrontierCode | — | 41.2% |
| CursorBench | — | 39.6% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1581 |
| FrontierSWE | — | 19.6% |
| SciCode | — | 56.6% |
| WeirdML | 35.2% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 27.8 (#89)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 40.3 (#22)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 64.3% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | — | 23.4% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,094 |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 21.5 (#196)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 64.7 (#13)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | 1506 |
| DTBench | 62.8% | 95.7% |
| LMCA | 18.1% | 52.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.93 | 157.13 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 97.4% |
| CritPt | — | 18.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 61% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 47% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 76.9% |

## Math

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 35.5 (#144)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 65.2 (#22)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1528 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 68.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 22% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 98.9% |
| ProofBench | — | 48% |
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.1 (#206)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 74.9 (#2)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | 1529 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 95.4% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 44.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 69.7% |
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.6 (#109)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 40.9 (#33)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | 1312 |
| VPCT | 30% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 38.6% |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 31.7% |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.5 (#129)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 57.9 (#5)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | 1486 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | 1547 |
| LMArena French | 1388 | 1502 |
| LMArena German | 1390 | 1470 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | 1505 |
| LMArena Korean | 1358 | 1479 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1507 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | 1492 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.2 (#163)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 78.2 (#11)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1366 | 1489 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#257)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 46.2 (#23)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | 1506 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 57.0 (#130)
- Gemini 3.8 Flash: 72.1 (#16)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | 1494 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1366 | 1485 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1367 | 1503 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1748 |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.5 to 36.4 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 8.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.8 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.8 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 3.8 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.8 Flash better for coding?

Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 56.4 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 3.8 Flash share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.8 Flash has 46.