Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 53 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 73.1 against 30.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 74 to 25.
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 Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning). That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) 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 128K for Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning).
Pick Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
49.2
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
34
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
24.7
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
7.2
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
73.1
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
30.4
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
65.8
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
35.3
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
45.3
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
25.2
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
79
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
68
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
69.8
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
59.7
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
66.1
Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)
40.9
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is ahead overall, 53 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 74 and 25.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 45.3 versus 25.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 24.7 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 66.1 versus 40.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 65.8 versus 35.3. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 49.2 versus 34. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 79 versus 68. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.8 versus 59.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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