Compare/Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)vsGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

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

Alibaba

Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)

Input
$0.11/M
Output
$0.42/M
Speed
104 tok/s
TTFT
0.98s
Google

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

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

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)
Lower Latency
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (1-11)
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

Pricing Comparison

MetricQwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.11$0.1
Output ($/M tokens)$0.42$0.4
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)$0.15
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)$0.14

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)
104 tok/s
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)
0.98s
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
12.521.6
Coding Index
18.2
Math Index
68.7
GPQA Diamond
39.8%70.9%
MMLU-Pro
58.6%80.8%
LiveCodeBench
23.3%68.8%
AIME 2025
68.7%
MATH-500
84.3%
Humanity's Last Exam
3.7%6.6%
SciCode
16.7%28.7%
IFBench
52.6%
TerminalBench
12.9%
Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning)1 wins
11 winsGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning) or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.17/M tokens vs $0.19/M for Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning).

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning) wins 11 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 1 for Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning) generates tokens faster at 104 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. However, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 0.98s).

When should I use Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning) vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning) for lower cost, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview (Sep '25) (Reasoning) for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3 4B (Non-reasoning) for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.