# Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.5 27B

> Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-2-5-flash-lite-vs-qwen3-5-27b
- 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 0 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 9 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multimodal, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 39.4 to 29.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 62.8% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 82.4% for Qwen3.5 27B.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 27B.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.0 | 41.9 |
| Rank | 211 | 127 |
| Context | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.40 | $2.40 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 35.2% | 39.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | 1427 |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | 349.45 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1358 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96)
- Qwen3.5 27B: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 201.98 |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | 1414 |
| DTBench | 62.8% | 82.4% |
| LMCA | 18.1% | 34% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 47.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 45.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.94 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1429 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56.7% |
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | 12.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | 1428 |
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | 1241 |
| VPCT | 30% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | 1390 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1388 | 1410 |
| LMArena German | 1389 | 1393 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | 1345 |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | 1358 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1390 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | 1407 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1367 | 1393 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | 1413 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135)
- Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)

| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | 1409 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1367 | 1362 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1366 | 1410 |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Qwen3.5 27B?

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 4.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3.5 27B?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 27B lists at $0.30 and $2.40.

### Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (38.5 vs 38.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Qwen3.5 27B share?

23 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.