# Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Sonar

> Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-flash-preview-vs-sonar
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 49.2 to 21.1.
- Sonar is cheaper at $1 / $1 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 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Perplexity |
| Noometry Index | 52.3 | 38.5 |
| Rank | 40 | 187 |
| Context | 1.05M | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $3 | $1 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42)
- Sonar: 35.7 (#221)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| 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% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1460 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,367 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | — |
| 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)
- Sonar: 21.1 (#227)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | — |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 83.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84.7% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 40% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 46.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1465 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 26% | — |
| DTBench | 89.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 37.9% |
| LMCA | 43.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.8 | — |
| ForecastBench | 58.5 | — |
| LiveBench | — | 46.9% |

## Math

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55)
- Sonar: 33.7 (#200)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| 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% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 41.6% |
| LMArena Math | 1473 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 35.6% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 89.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 13.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1462 | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16)
- Sonar: —

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

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1458 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1511 | — |
| LMArena French | 1477 | — |
| LMArena German | 1497 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1489 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1443 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1480 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1469 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56)
- Sonar: 71.4 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 76.2% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1437 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67)
- Sonar: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1452 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45)
- Sonar: 52.6 (#167)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1466 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1457 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1471 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 44.1% |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Sonar?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 38.5 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Sonar?

Sonar is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $1 per million output tokens; Gemini 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

### Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Sonar better for coding?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 35.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3 Flash Preview and Sonar share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and Sonar has 7.