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

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 33. 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 multimodal & grounded, where it averages 41.7 against 32.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 37 to 17. LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking is the reasoning model in the pair, while Gemma 3 27B 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.

Quick Verdict

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

Agentic

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

34.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

34.1

29
Terminal-Bench 2.0
34
42
BrowseComp
37
35
OSWorld-Verified
32

Coding

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

16

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

8.2

37
HumanEval
17
16
SWE-bench Verified
10
15
LiveCodeBench
9
17
SWE-bench Pro
7

Multimodal & Grounded

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

41.7

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

32.4

39
MMMU-Pro
27
45
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

45.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

38.4

43
SimpleQA
29
41
MuSR
31
62
BBH
67
47
LongBench v2
39
44
MRCRv2
42

Knowledge

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

34.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

27

45
MMLU
27
44
GPQA
26
42
SuperGPQA
24
40
OpenBookQA
22
50
MMLU-Pro
51
3
HLE
2
42
FrontierScience
31

Instruction Following

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

Gemma 3 27B

67

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

72

67
IFEval
72

Multilingual

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

61.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

60.7

64
MGSM
62
60
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

Gemma 3 27B

Gemma 3 27B

49.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

42.3

45
AIME 2023
28
47
AIME 2024
30
46
AIME 2025
29
41
HMMT Feb 2023
24
43
HMMT Feb 2024
26
42
HMMT Feb 2025
25
44
BRUMO 2025
27
56
MATH-500
61

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Gemma 3 27B is ahead overall, 38 to 33. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 37 and 17.

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

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 34.6 versus 27. 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-Thinking?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 16 versus 8.2. 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-Thinking?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 49.4 versus 42.3. 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-Thinking?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 45.6 versus 38.4. 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-Thinking?

Gemma 3 27B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 34.4 versus 34.1. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 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-Thinking?

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-Thinking?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 72 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-Thinking?

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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