Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google or Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite scores 6.7 points higher (15.6 vs 8.9) but costs 11× as much to run the benchmark ($156 vs $14.7; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.6 | 8.9 | −42.9% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 42.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $155.87 | $14.68 | −90.6% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 90.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.15s | 57.75s | +839.0% Gemma 4 E4B (Reasonin… is 839.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $1.50 | $0.02 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: 42.9% less intelligence, 90.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 839.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteGemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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