Step 3.5 Flash vs Gemini 1.0 Pro

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Step 3.5 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 66 to 46. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 13.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 48 to 5. Gemini 1.0 Pro does hit back in multimodal & grounded, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 32K for Gemini 1.0 Pro.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 1.0 Pro only becomes the better choice if multimodal & grounded is the priority.

Agentic

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

Gemini 1.0 Pro

39.8

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
36
66
BrowseComp
51
54
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

Gemini 1.0 Pro

13.1

77
HumanEval
54
48
SWE-bench Verified
5
45
LiveCodeBench
16
49
SWE-bench Pro
12

Multimodal & Grounded

Gemini 1.0 Pro

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

Gemini 1.0 Pro

68.1

64
MMMU-Pro
73
70
OfficeQA Pro
62

Reasoning

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

Gemini 1.0 Pro

57.4

82
SimpleQA
60
82
MuSR
58
83
BBH
73
74
LongBench v2
51
73
MRCRv2
54

Knowledge

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

Gemini 1.0 Pro

42.8

84
MMLU
62
83
GPQA
62
81
SuperGPQA
60
79
OpenBookQA
58
76
MMLU-Pro
54
12
HLE
1
71
FrontierScience
54

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

Gemini 1.0 Pro

77

87
IFEval
77

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

Gemini 1.0 Pro

66.8

86
MGSM
72
81
MMLU-ProX
64

Mathematics

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

Gemini 1.0 Pro

65.9

85
AIME 2023
62
87
AIME 2024
64
86
AIME 2025
63
81
HMMT Feb 2023
58
83
HMMT Feb 2024
60
82
HMMT Feb 2025
59
84
BRUMO 2025
61
85
MATH-500
72

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 46. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 48 and 5.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 42.8. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 13.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.5 versus 65.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 57.4. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.2 versus 39.8. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Gemini 1.0 Pro has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 68.1 versus 66.7. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 77. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or Gemini 1.0 Pro?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 66.8. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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