vs
0:8
overall capability wins (2 ties across 10 scored). Gemini 3.6 Flash leads overall.
- Reasoning0:6
- Coding0:1
- Arena0:1
- Pricing3:0
- Speed2:0
Verdict
Gemini 3.6 Flash leads coding (widest gap: +14.0 on SciCode); Gemini 3.6 Flash ranks higher on LMArena (+70 Elo); Gemini 2.5 Flash is ~3.5x cheaper on a blended token basis than Gemini 3.6 Flash.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash leads coding (widest gap: +14.0 on SciCode)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash ranks higher on LMArena (+70 Elo)
- Gemini 2.5 Flash is ~3.5x cheaper on a blended token basis than Gemini 3.6 Flash
Cost for 1M in + 250K out
Illustrative chat workload at primary-provider list prices.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash
- $0.93
- Gemini 3.6 Flash
- $3.38
Gemini 2.5 Flash is about 3.6x cheaper on this workload.
Price per 1M tokens
Full comparison
Organization
Family
Gemini
Gemini
License
Proprietary
Proprietary
Open weights
No
No
Release
Apr 17, 2025
Jul 21, 2026
Knowledge cutoff
-
-
API / provider
Modalities
text, image, audio, video → text
text, image, audio, video → text
Specs
Context window
1M
1M
Max output
66K
66K
Parameters
—
—
Pricing
Input $/1M
$0.30
$1.50
Output $/1M
$2.50
$7.50
Blended $/1M (3∶1)
$0.85
$3
Speed
tok/s
220
180
TTFT (s)
0.18
0.22
Reasoning
MMLU-Pro
—
—
GPQA Diamond
79.0
92.8
Humanity's Last Exam
12.1
40.8
AIME 2025
—
—
MATH-500
—
—
Humanity's Last Exam (with tools)
—
—
AA-Omniscience Accuracy
26.0
50.0
AA-LCR v1.1
65.3
80.0
CritPt
1.1
10.6
MMMU-Pro
69.1
83.2
IFBench
50.3
—
Chartography
—
—
Chartography (With Tools)
—
—
Coding
SWE-bench Verified
28.7
—
SWE-bench Pro
—
—
SWE-bench Multilingual
—
—
LiveCodeBench
75.1
—
Terminal-Bench 2.1
—
77.5
Aider Polyglot
—
—
Terminal-Bench 3
—
—
BigCodeBench
—
—
SciCode
39.4
53.4
CursorBench
—
53.5
SWE-Rebench
19.9
—
NL2Repo-Bench
—
—
DeepSWE
—
47.0
WebDev Arena
—
1,537
Terminal-Bench 4.0
—
—
CursorBench 4.0
—
—
FrontierCode v1.1 (Main)
—
—
Arena
LMArena Elo
1,410
1,480
| Metric | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | |||
| Organization | — | ||
| Family | Gemini | Gemini | — |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary | — |
| Open weights | No | No | — |
| Release | Apr 17, 2025 | Jul 21, 2026 | — |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - | — |
| API / provider | — | ||
| Modalities | text, image, audio, video → text | text, image, audio, video → text | — |
| Specs | |||
| Context window | 1M | 1M | tie |
| Max output | 66K | 66K | tie |
| Parameters | — | — | — |
| Pricing | |||
| Input $/1M | $0.30 | $1.50 | A +$1.20 |
| Output $/1M | $2.50 | $7.50 | A +$5 |
| Blended $/1M (3∶1) | $0.85 | $3 | A +$2.15 |
| Speed | |||
| tok/s | 220 | 180 | A +40 |
| TTFT (s) | 0.18 | 0.22 | A +0.04 |
| Reasoning | |||
| MMLU-Pro | — | — | — |
| GPQA Diamond | 79.0 | 92.8 | B +13.8 pts |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 12.1 | 40.8 | B +28.7 pts |
| AIME 2025 | — | — | — |
| MATH-500 | — | — | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam (with tools) | — | — | — |
| AA-Omniscience Accuracy | 26.0 | 50.0 | B +24.0 pts |
| AA-LCR v1.1 | 65.3 | 80.0 | B +14.7 pts |
| CritPt | 1.1 | 10.6 | B +9.5 pts |
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1 | 83.2 | B +14.1 pts |
| IFBench | 50.3 | — | — |
| Chartography | — | — | — |
| Chartography (With Tools) | — | — | — |
| Coding | |||
| SWE-bench Verified | 28.7 | — | — |
| SWE-bench Pro | — | — | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | — | — |
| LiveCodeBench | 75.1 | — | — |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | — | 77.5 | — |
| Aider Polyglot | — | — | — |
| Terminal-Bench 3 | — | — | — |
| BigCodeBench | — | — | — |
| SciCode | 39.4 | 53.4 | B +14.0 pts |
| CursorBench | — | 53.5 | — |
| SWE-Rebench | 19.9 | — | — |
| NL2Repo-Bench | — | — | — |
| DeepSWE | — | 47.0 | — |
| WebDev Arena | — | 1,537 | — |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | — | — | — |
| CursorBench 4.0 | — | — | — |
| FrontierCode v1.1 (Main) | — | — | — |
| Arena | |||
| LMArena Elo | 1,410 | 1,480 | B +70 Elo |
Gemini 2.5 Flash
- Context
- 1M / 66K out
- Parameters
- —
- Price
- $0.30 / $2.50
- Speed
- 220 tok/s · 0.18s TTFT
- Modalities
- text, image, audio, video → text
- License
- Proprietary
Legacy Flash workhorse - very cheap and fast for bulk multimodal processing.
Gemini 3.6 Flash
- Context
- 1M / 66K out
- Parameters
- —
- Price
- $1.50 / $7.50
- Speed
- 180 tok/s · 0.22s TTFT
- Modalities
- text, image, audio, video → text
- License
- Proprietary
Newest Flash model powering the free Gemini app - cheaper output tokens and strong price/performance.
Benchmark charts
Winner bars are emphasized. Per-benchmark deltas sit above each chart.