o1 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash

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

o1 has the cleaner overall profile here, landing at 51 versus 49. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

o1's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 83.8 against 42.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 91.8 to 50.

o1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $60.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.15 input / $0.60 output per 1M tokens for Gemini 2.5 Flash. That is roughly 100.0x on output cost alone. o1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Gemini 2.5 Flash is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Gemini 2.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for o1.

Quick Verdict

Pick o1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 2.5 Flash only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 1M context window.

Knowledge

o1

o1

83.8

Gemini 2.5 Flash

42.7

91.8
MMLU
50
75.7
GPQA
49
-
SuperGPQA
47
-
OpenBookQA
45
-
MMLU-Pro
64
-
HLE
1

Coding

o1

o1

41

Gemini 2.5 Flash

27.7

41
SWE-bench Verified
23
-
HumanEval
42
-
LiveCodeBench
18

Mathematics

o1

o1

74.3

Gemini 2.5 Flash

51.9

74.3
AIME 2024
52
-
AIME 2023
50
-
AIME 2025
51
-
HMMT Feb 2023
46
-
HMMT Feb 2024
48
-
HMMT Feb 2025
47
-
BRUMO 2025
49
-
MATH-500
72

Reasoning

Gemini 2.5 Flash
-
SimpleQA
48
-
MuSR
46
-
BBH
75

Instruction Following

o1

o1

92.2

Gemini 2.5 Flash

79

92.2
IFEval
79

Multilingual

Gemini 2.5 Flash
-
MGSM
74

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o1 or Gemini 2.5 Flash?

o1 is ahead overall, 51 to 49. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 91.8 and 50.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o1 or Gemini 2.5 Flash?

o1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.8 versus 42.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, o1 or Gemini 2.5 Flash?

o1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 41 versus 27.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o1 or Gemini 2.5 Flash?

o1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 74.3 versus 51.9. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, o1 or Gemini 2.5 Flash?

o1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 92.2 versus 79. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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