Compare/Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)vsGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

Alibaba

Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)

Input
$0.09/M
Output
$0.45/M
Speed
67 tok/s
TTFT
1.15s
Google

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Input
$0.1/M
Output
$0.4/M
Speed
TTFT

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)
Lower Latency
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)
Benchmarks (4-7)
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricQwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.09$0.1
Output ($/M tokens)$0.45$0.4
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)$0.14
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)$0.14

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)
67 tok/s
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)
1.15s
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
15.319.4
Coding Index
11.014.5
Math Index
72.346.7
GPQA Diamond
61.6%65.1%
MMLU-Pro
77.7%79.6%
LiveCodeBench
50.6%64.1%
AIME 2025
72.3%46.7%
MATH-500
95.9%
Humanity's Last Exam
6.6%4.6%
SciCode
28.5%28.5%
IFBench
41.5%41.8%
TerminalBench
2.3%7.6%
Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning)4 wins
7 winsGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning) or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.17/M tokens vs $0.18/M for Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning) wins 7 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 4 for Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning) generates tokens faster at 67 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. However, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 1.15s).

When should I use Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning) for lower cost, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Non-reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3 30B A3B (Reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.