Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Gemini 3.6 Flash

  • Gemini 3.8 Flash rates higher on LMArena’s text leaderboard: 1498 against 1480.
  • Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper: $0.75 / $3.75 per million input / output tokens, against $0.82 / $4.13 for Gemini 3.8 Flash.
  • On the 10 Vals AI benchmarks both have taken, Gemini 3.8 Flash wins 9 and Gemini 3.6 Flash wins 1 (Gemini 3.8 Flash: SWE-bench, Vibe Code Bench, LiveCodeBench).
LMArena text rating over time
14601468147514831490Jul 21Aug 13Sep 5Sep 28Oct 22
LatestGemini 3.6 Flash 1480

Side by side

Models (2/6)
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash
  • Gemini 3.6 Flash
BenchmarkGemini 3.8 FlashGemini 3.6 Flash
The model
LabGoogleGoogle
Released2026-09-022026-07-21
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1M1M
Input, per 1M tokens$0.82$0.75
Output, per 1M tokens$4.13$3.75
LMArena, people’s votes
LMArena TextMillions of people compare two anonymous models side by side and vote for the better answer1498#8 of 3511480#20 of 351
LMArena WebDevPeople ask two anonymous models to build the same web app, try both and vote for the better one1585#36 of 1241538#49 of 124
LMArena VisionSide-by-side votes on prompts that include an image1315#7 of 1461299#20 of 146
LMArena CodingLMArena’s text votes on prompts that ask for code1508#17 of 3461491#34 of 346
LMArena MathLMArena’s text votes on math prompts1532#4 of 3391507#11 of 339
LMArena Creative writingLMArena’s text votes on stories, poems and other creative writing1489#8 of 3491466#21 of 349
LMArena Hard promptsLMArena’s text votes on the hardest prompts1509#9 of 3511486#25 of 351
LMArena Instruction followingLMArena’s text votes on prompts with specific instructions to follow1492#11 of 3511467#31 of 351
Vals AI, overall
Vals IndexVals AI’s headline score55.95%#15 of 27—
Vals AI, coding
Terminal-Bench 4.0Frontier-difficulty tasks an agent completes in a real terminal19.70%#31 of 55—
SWE-benchReal GitHub issues from open-source projects80.00%#23 of 8579.60%#25 of 85
Vibe Code BenchBuilding complete web apps from a plain-language brief, graded on whether the app works78.65%#29 of 11564.00%#50 of 115
Code MigrationRewriting working programs in a new language, graded on whether the new program still passes its tests38.65%#22 of 28—
LiveCodeBenchFresh competitive programming problems, collected after models’ training cut-offs to avoid contamination89.48%#3 of 14388.08%#8 of 143
Vals AI, finance
Finance AgentThe core tasks of a financial analyst, done as an agent with research tools65.76%#5 of 31—
Finance IndexVals AI’s composite of finance tasks60.46%#9 of 31—
Tax Agent BenchAgentic research into US corporate tax questions32.12%#21 of 7618.04%#53 of 76
Vals AI, law
Legal IndexVals AI’s composite of legal tasks69.78%#14 of 28—
Legal Research BenchAgentic US legal research38.94%#34 of 8525.00%#60 of 85
Vals AI, medicine
MedCodeAssigning the right medical billing codes from clinical notes48.13%#31 of 10753.15%#11 of 107
Vals AI, reasoning
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level questions in biology, physics and chemistry that experts answer well and search does not94.44%#4 of 13893.43%#7 of 138
MMLU-ProHarder, reasoning-focused multiple choice across 14 subjects, from law to engineering90.22%#5 of 13889.28%#13 of 138
MMMUCollege-level questions that need both an image and text89.08%#4 of 9388.38%#7 of 93
Terminal-Bench ScienceExpert-written scientific research workflows, run by an agent in a terminal8.57%#19 of 424.29%#28 of 42

Add models in the compare tool.

Questions

Which is better, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Gemini 3.8 Flash rates higher on LMArena’s text leaderboard: 1498 against 1480. Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper: $0.75 / $3.75 per million input / output tokens, against $0.82 / $4.13 for Gemini 3.8 Flash. On the 10 Vals AI benchmarks both have taken, Gemini 3.8 Flash wins 9 and Gemini 3.6 Flash wins 1 (Gemini 3.8 Flash: SWE-bench, Vibe Code Bench, LiveCodeBench).

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.8 Flash or Gemini 3.6 Flash?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper: $0.75 / $3.75 per million input / output tokens, against $0.82 / $4.13 for Gemini 3.8 Flash.

Sources

Every number on this page comes from these sources; models without a published number show none. Download the data. Cite as “Nexus Explorer, nexus.inc/models”.