Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Gemma 4 26B A4B

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

Agentic
Coding
Multimodal & Grounded
Reasoning
Knowledge
Instruction Following
Multilingual
Mathematics

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite· Gemma 4 26B A4B

Quick Verdict

Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite only becomes the better choice if reasoning is the priority or you need the larger 1M context window.

Gemma 4 26B A4B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 64 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Gemma 4 26B A4B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 77.1 against 24.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 21% to 77.1%. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite does hit back in reasoning, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Gemma 4 26B A4B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Gemma 4 26B A4B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite 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 3.1 Flash-Lite gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Gemma 4 26B A4B.

Operational tradeoffs

ProviderGoogleGoogle
Price$0.10 / $0.40Free*
Speed205 t/sN/A
TTFT7.50sN/A
Context1M256K

Decision framing

BenchLM keeps the benchmark table and the operator tradeoffs on the same page so a better score does not hide a materially slower, pricier, or smaller-context model.

Runtime metrics show N/A when BenchLM does not have a sourced snapshot for that exact model. The scoring rules and freshness policy are documented on the methodology page.

BenchmarkGemini 3.1 Flash-LiteGemma 4 26B A4B
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.047%
BrowseComp60%
OSWorld-Verified44%
CodingGemma 4 26B A4B wins
HumanEval55%
SWE-bench Verified22%
LiveCodeBench21%77.1%
SWE-bench Pro29%
Multimodal & GroundedGemma 4 26B A4B wins
MMMU-Pro74%73.8%
OfficeQA Pro72%
ReasoningGemini 3.1 Flash-Lite wins
MuSR58%
BBH74%64.8%
LongBench v269%
MRCRv273%44.1%
KnowledgeGemma 4 26B A4B wins
MMLU63%
GPQA62%82.3%
SuperGPQA60%
MMLU-Pro63%82.6%
HLE1%17.2%
FrontierScience55%
SimpleQA60%
HLE w/o tools8.7%
Instruction Following
IFEval79%
Multilingual
MGSM73%
MMLU-ProX68%
Mathematics
AIME 202363%
AIME 202465%
AIME 202564%
HMMT Feb 202359%
HMMT Feb 202461%
HMMT Feb 202560%
BRUMO 202562%
MATH-50071%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Gemma 4 26B A4B?

Gemma 4 26B A4B is ahead overall, 64 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 21% and 77.1%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Gemma 4 26B A4B?

Gemma 4 26B A4B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 56.1 versus 46.4. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Gemma 4 26B A4B?

Gemma 4 26B A4B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.1 versus 24.3. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Gemma 4 26B A4B?

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 67.4 versus 44.1. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or Gemma 4 26B A4B?

Gemma 4 26B A4B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 73.1. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: April 2, 2026

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