Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.
o3-mini finishes one point ahead overall, 56 to 55. That is enough to call, but not enough to treat as a blowout. This matchup comes down to a few meaningful edges rather than one model dominating the board.
o3-mini's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 82.1 against 51.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 49.3 to 22.
o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.10 input / $0.40 output per 1M tokens for Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite. That is roughly 11.0x on output cost alone. o3-mini 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 200K for o3-mini.
Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 1M context window.
o3-mini
82.1
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
51.2
o3-mini
49.3
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
32.7
o3-mini
87.3
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
63.1
o3-mini
93.9
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
79
o3-mini is ahead overall, 56 to 55. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 49.3 and 22.
o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 51.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 49.3 versus 32.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
o3-mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.3 versus 63.1. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 79. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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