Seed 1.6 Flash vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

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

Seed 1.6 Flash has the cleaner overall profile here, landing at 56 versus 53. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Seed 1.6 Flash's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 54.5 against 49.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is OSWorld-Verified, 52 to 44.

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.08 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens for Seed 1.6 Flash. Seed 1.6 Flash 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 Seed 1.6 Flash.

Quick Verdict

Pick Seed 1.6 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

54.5

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

49.2

52
Terminal-Bench 2.0
47
62
BrowseComp
60
52
OSWorld-Verified
44

Coding

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

27.6

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

24.7

59
HumanEval
55
24
SWE-bench Verified
22
25
LiveCodeBench
21
31
SWE-bench Pro
29

Multimodal & Grounded

Tie

Seed 1.6 Flash

73.1

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

73.1

74
MMMU-Pro
74
72
OfficeQA Pro
72

Reasoning

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

66.8

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

65.8

61
SimpleQA
60
59
MuSR
58
75
BBH
74
70
LongBench v2
69
74
MRCRv2
73

Knowledge

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

47.3

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

45.3

65
MMLU
63
64
GPQA
62
62
SuperGPQA
60
60
OpenBookQA
58
65
MMLU-Pro
63
3
HLE
1
57
FrontierScience
55

Instruction Following

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

81

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

79

81
IFEval
79

Multilingual

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

72.8

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

69.8

76
MGSM
73
71
MMLU-ProX
68

Mathematics

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

67.1

Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite

66.1

64
AIME 2023
63
66
AIME 2024
65
65
AIME 2025
64
60
HMMT Feb 2023
59
62
HMMT Feb 2024
61
61
HMMT Feb 2025
60
63
BRUMO 2025
62
72
MATH-500
71

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash is ahead overall, 56 to 53. The biggest single separator in this matchup is OSWorld-Verified, where the scores are 52 and 44.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 47.3 versus 45.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 27.6 versus 24.7. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 67.1 versus 66.1. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 66.8 versus 65.8. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.5 versus 49.2. Inside this category, OSWorld-Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite are effectively tied for multimodal and grounded tasks here, both landing at 73.1 on average.

Which is better for instruction following, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 81 versus 79. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.8 versus 69.8. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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