# Gemma 3 12B vs Qwen2.5-Coder-32B

> Qwen2.5-Coder-32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.9 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen2.5-Coder-32B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-qwen2-5-coder-32b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B in 3 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen2.5-Coder-32B leads 30.8 to 21.0.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.66 / $1 for Qwen2.5-Coder-32B.
- Gemma 3 12B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 32.9 |
| Rank | 255 | 239 |
| Context | 131K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.66 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $1 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 22.4 (#328)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1276 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 9% |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 16.4% |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 49% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 56.9% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 58% |
| HumanEval+ | — | 87.2% |
| MBPP+ | — | 77% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 20.4 (#220)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1251 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | 119.41 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 42.1% |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 49.9% |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 83% |
| LiveBench | — | 46.2% |
| WinoGrande | — | 80.8% |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 30.8 (#203)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1251 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 46.6% |
| GSM8K | — | 93% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 32.9 (#200)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1221 |
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 70.5% |
| MMLU | — | 79.1% |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 38.0 (#230)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1205 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1228 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1222 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 61.6 (#240)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1223 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 58.7% |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 37.9 (#204)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1251 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 41.8 (#235)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1230 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1174 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1222 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 23.3% |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Qwen2.5-Coder-32B?

Qwen2.5-Coder-32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.9 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen2.5-Coder-32B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Qwen2.5-Coder-32B?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5-Coder-32B lists at $0.66 and $1.

### Is Gemma 3 12B or Qwen2.5-Coder-32B better for coding?

Gemma 3 12B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 31.2 versus 22.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemma 3 12B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B has 31.