# Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Nova 2 Lite

> Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-flash-preview-vs-nova-2-lite
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 9 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 27.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 13.5% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 5.1% for Nova 2 Lite.
- Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Amazon |
| Noometry Index | 52.3 | 39.7 |
| Rank | 40 | 161 |
| Context | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/M | $3 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1460 | 1385 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.4% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 75.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1439 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 72.7% | — |
| GSO | 9.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 61.6% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,367 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29)
- Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| τ²-bench Airline | 82.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 27.3% | — |
| τ²-bench Retail | 76.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Telecom | 91.2% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.8% | — |
| BALROG | 48.1% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1198 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 3,635 | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37)
- Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1465 | 1364 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | — |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 83.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 26% | — |
| DTBench | 89.1% | — |
| LMCA | 43.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.8 | — |
| ForecastBench | 58.5 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55)
- Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1473 | 1359 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 51.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 67.6% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 95.6% | — |
| ProofBench | 15% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 35.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33)
- Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 13.5% | 5.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1462 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 89.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16)
- Nova 2 Lite: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1285 | — |
| GeoBench | 88% | — |
| VPCT | 72.6% | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 0% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1413 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27)
- Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1458 | 1337 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1511 | 1364 |
| LMArena French | 1477 | 1381 |
| LMArena German | 1497 | 1343 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1489 | 1271 |
| LMArena Korean | 1443 | 1284 |
| LMArena Russian | 1480 | 1343 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1469 | 1373 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56)
- Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1437 | 1335 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67)
- Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1452 | 1335 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45)
- Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Nova 2 Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1466 | 1362 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1457 | 1291 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1471 | 1338 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Nova 2 Lite?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

### Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and Nova 2 Lite share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.