Gemma 3 27B vs LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

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

Gemma 3 27B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 38 to 30. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Gemma 3 27B's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 45.6 against 32.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 37 to 14. LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Quick Verdict

Pick Gemma 3 27B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority.

Agentic

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

34.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

25.7

29
Terminal-Bench 2.0
22
42
BrowseComp
31
35
OSWorld-Verified
26

Coding

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

16

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

7.2

37
HumanEval
14
16
SWE-bench Verified
9
15
LiveCodeBench
8
17
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

41.7

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.4

39
MMMU-Pro
27
45
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

45.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.1

43
SimpleQA
24
41
MuSR
22
62
BBH
59
47
LongBench v2
34
44
MRCRv2
37

Knowledge

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

34.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

26

45
MMLU
26
44
GPQA
25
42
SuperGPQA
23
40
OpenBookQA
21
50
MMLU-Pro
50
3
HLE
1
42
FrontierScience
30

Instruction Following

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

Gemma 3 27B

67

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

80

67
IFEval
80

Multilingual

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

61.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

60.7

64
MGSM
62
60
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

49.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

37

45
AIME 2023
24
47
AIME 2024
26
46
AIME 2025
25
41
HMMT Feb 2023
20
43
HMMT Feb 2024
22
42
HMMT Feb 2025
21
44
BRUMO 2025
23
56
MATH-500
54

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B is ahead overall, 38 to 30. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 37 and 14.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 34.6 versus 26. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 16 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 49.4 versus 37. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 45.6 versus 32.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 34.4 versus 25.7. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 41.7 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 80 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Gemma 3 27B or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 61.4 versus 60.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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