Model comparison
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 1 category and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite in 9 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multimodal, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 39.4 to 29.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 40.5% for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and 67.2% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
Side by side
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Noometry Index | 37.0 | 40.8 |
| Released | 2025-06-17 | 2026-03-03 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $1.50 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 38 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 35.2% | 52.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | 1400 |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | 797.73 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1256 |
| SciCode | — | 41.9% |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | — | 37.3% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | 67.2% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | 1407 |
| DTBench | 62.8% | 76.8% |
| LMCA | 18.1% | 35% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.94 | 144.47 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 8.2% |
| CritPt | — | 1.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 25% |
| EnigmaEval | — | 3% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.3% |
| ForecastBench | — | 54.4 |
Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1428 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 27.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 80% |
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |
Knowledge Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | 8.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | 1398 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 81.8% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 8.6% |
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |
Multimodal Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | 1240 |
| VPCT | 30% | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | 1411 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | 1461 |
| LMArena French | 1388 | 1424 |
| LMArena German | 1389 | 1429 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | 1413 |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | 1392 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1420 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | 1421 |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1367 | 1377 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |
Long Context Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | 1394 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | 1416 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1367 | 1401 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1366 | 1417 |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.8 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (38.5 vs 37.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 1.05M tokens.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite share?
25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38.