Model comparison

Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 39.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 28 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.5 Flash

Google

39.0

Rank #162 Confirmed

Gemini 3.6 Flash

Google

54.1

Rank #30 Confirmed

Summary

They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash scores higher in 2 categories and Gemini 3.6 Flash in 8 categories; 10 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 58.9 to 18.2.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 2.5% for Gemini 2.5 Flash and 60.4% for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
Gemini 2.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.

Side by side

Gemini 2.5 Flash and Gemini 3.6 Flash specifications
	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
Provider	Google	Google
Noometry Index	39.0	54.1
Released	2025-04-17	2026-07-21
Weights	Proprietary	Proprietary
Context window	1.05M	1.05M
Max output	66K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.75
Output $ / M tokens	$2.50	$3.75
Results tracked	54	46

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 35.5 (#210), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 49.6 (#45)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
WeirdML	41.9%	56.1%
LMArena Coding	1424	1492
ALE-Bench	661.88	715.52
DeepSWE	—	46.7%
FrontierCode	—	34.4%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	28.7%	—
Aider Polyglot	55.1%	—
LMArena WebDev	—	1536
SciCode	—	52.7%

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 30.6 (#67), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.4 (#56)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
Terminal-Bench	17.1%	—
APEX-Agents	—	46.9%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	56.2%	—
TheAgentCompany	41.1%	—
BALROG	33.5%	—
GDP.pdf	—	14%
Vending-Bench 2	548.84	—

Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 18.2 (#271), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.9 (#20)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
ARC-AGI-2	2.5%	60.4%
ARC-AGI-1	33.3%	91.2%
CritPt	1.1%	10.6%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1422	1486
DTBench	76.5%	95.5%
LMCA	27.5%	44.9%
Epoch Capabilities Index	143.04	154.36
SimpleBench	41.2%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	56.8%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	—	89%
Chess Puzzles	—	43%
EnigmaEval	2.7%	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	30%
ForecastBench	60.6	—

Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 38.1 (#87), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.0 (#33)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	73.1%	94.2%
LMArena Math	1415	1504
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	58.9%
FrontierMath Tier 4	—	22%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	70.8%
ProofBench	—	36%
Omni-MATH	38.5%	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	4.8%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	4.2%	—

Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 36.1 (#162), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#7)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Expert	1426	1489
GPQA Diamond	—	94.1%
Humanity's Last Exam	12.1%	—
SimpleQA Verified	—	66.2%
MMLU-Pro	63.9%	—
Confabulations	16.8%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	7.8%	—
GPQA (HELM)	39%	—

Multimodal Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 41.2 (#31), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.7 (#55)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Vision	1254	1297
GeoBench	76%	—
VPCT	46.2%	—
Blueprint-Bench 2	—	31.2%
Furniture Assembly	—	23.3%
LMArena Document	—	1456
SpatialViz-Bench	36.9%	—

Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 52.5 (#83), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.8 (#17)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Non-English	1410	1470
LMArena Chinese	1450	1530
LMArena French	1433	1501
LMArena German	1419	1478
LMArena Japanese	1403	1477
LMArena Korean	1385	1435
LMArena Russian	1415	1490
LMArena Spanish	1421	1477

Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 75.9 (#50), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.2 (#27)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Instruction Following	1405	1467
IFEval	89.8%	—

Long Context Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 47.5 (#16), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#47)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Longer Query	1419	1475
Fiction.LiveBench	77.8%	—

Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 54.0 (#153), Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.3 (#26)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 2.5 Flash	Gemini 3.6 Flash
LMArena Text	1417	1478
LMArena Creative Writing	1400	1464
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1137	1604
LMArena Multi-Turn	1408	1481
Short-Story Creative Writing	76.5%	—
WildBench	81.7%	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash better than Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Gemini 2.5 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.6 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 1.05M tokens.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash and Gemini 3.6 Flash share?

28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash has 54 scored results on Noometry and Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46.