# Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Gemma 2 9B

> Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 25.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite-vs-gemma-2-9b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 8 categories and Gemma 2 9B in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 50.0 to 9.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 71.1% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 0.6% for Gemma 2 9B.
- Gemma 2 9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Google |
| Noometry Index | 41.8 | 25.7 |
| Rank | 113 | 334 |
| Context | 1.05M | — |
| Input $/M | $0.30 | — |
| Output $/M | $2.50 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.1 (#96)
- Gemma 2 9B: 29.0 (#299)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1455 | 1174 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1440 | — |
| SciCode | 41.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 39% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 34.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 22.5% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 40.6% |
| ALE-Bench | 765.27 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 28.6 (#82)
- Gemma 2 9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#95)
- Gemma 2 9B: 15.3 (#306)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1441 | 1172 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.12 | 119.78 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 10.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 53.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 22% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.2% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| DTBench | 83.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 36.4% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |
| LiveBench | — | 28.7% |
| PIQA | — | 83.7% |

## Math

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#245)
- Gemma 2 9B: 9.3 (#312)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | 0.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1431 | 1183 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 26% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | — |
| ProofBench | 13% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 19.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 21% |
| GSM8K | — | 84.9% |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.0 (#66)
- Gemma 2 9B: 9.7 (#300)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 83.3% | 27.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1430 | 1147 |
| BoolQ | — | 85.7% |
| MMLU | — | 72.1% |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 40.3 (#38)
- Gemma 2 9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1266 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.8 (#59)
- Gemma 2 9B: 36.8 (#233)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1428 | 1188 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1467 | 1185 |
| LMArena French | 1452 | 1189 |
| LMArena German | 1454 | 1186 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1428 | 1144 |
| LMArena Korean | 1406 | 1137 |
| LMArena Russian | 1443 | 1200 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1440 | 1200 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 75.0 (#77)
- Gemma 2 9B: 57.8 (#264)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1178 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 52.6% |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.8 (#80)
- Gemma 2 9B: 36.3 (#228)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1435 | 1197 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.4 (#55)
- Gemma 2 9B: 32.3 (#276)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Gemma 2 9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1436 | 1207 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1419 | 1206 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1559 | 841 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1445 | 1193 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 25.5% |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Gemma 2 9B?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 25.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Gemma 2 9B better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.1 versus 29.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Gemma 2 9B share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 2 9B has 35.