# Gemma 2 2b IT vs Gemma 3 12B

> Gemma 2 2b IT and Gemma 3 12B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.5 vs 31.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-2-2b-it-vs-gemma-3-12b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 2b IT scores higher in 4 categories and Gemma 3 12B in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.9 to 32.5.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Google |
| Noometry Index | 32.5 | 31.8 |
| Rank | 244 | 255 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 31.8 (#268)
- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1112 | 1281 |
| SciCode | — | 17.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 2 2b IT: —
- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 30.4% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 20.5 (#219)
- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1113 | 1309 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| DTBench | — | 48.8% |
| LMCA | — | 4.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 123.49 |

## Math

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 30.1 (#212)
- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1135 | 1307 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 16.7% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 29.3 (#229)
- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1096 | 1248 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 39.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.4% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 2 2b IT: —
- Gemma 3 12B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | — | 46.7% |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 32.5 (#252)
- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1121 | 1318 |
| LMArena German | 1114 | 1370 |
| LMArena Russian | 1118 | 1335 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1132 | — |
| LMArena French | 1156 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1083 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1055 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1140 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 58.1 (#258)
- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1118 | 1299 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 34.2 (#245)
- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1130 | 1317 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 2 2b IT: 36.6 (#258)
- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 2b IT | Gemma 3 12B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1156 | 1334 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1147 | 1331 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1118 | 1334 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1126 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 2 2b IT better than Gemma 3 12B?

Gemma 2 2b IT and Gemma 3 12B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (32.5 vs 31.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Gemma 2 2b IT or Gemma 3 12B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (31.8 vs 31.2); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 2b IT and Gemma 3 12B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 2b IT has 17 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 3 12B has 24.