Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra
Full profiles: Gemini 3.6 Flash (Google) and GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.
Updated · Data from 11 sources
As of 29 Oct 2026, GPT-6 Astra is ahead of Gemini 3.6 Flash on quality (68.2 vs 61.3 on the BenchLeader Index), but Gemini 3.6 Flash is 13× cheaper at $1.50 vs $20.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose Gemini 3.6 Flash for knowledge (64 vs 56), where it also streams 3×+ faster; choose GPT-6 Astra for fast first answers (3.0 s vs 13.9 s) and coding (83 vs 57), reasoning (86 vs 64), and maths (78 vs 59). Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)
- Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 61.3 on the BenchLeader Index and GPT-6 Astra scores 68.2 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $1.50 per 1M tokens blended until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 (https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing, checked 20 Oct 2026).
- GPT-6 Astra costs $20.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams 3×+ faster than GPT-6 Astra (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
- Of the 2 benchmarks both models have, GPT-6 Astra leads 2 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Gemini 3.6 Flash benchmarks 
GPT-6 Astra benchmarks Which to pick for…
The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.
| Use case | Pick | Why | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | GPT-6 Astra | 83 vs 57 category score | High |
| Agents & tool use | GPT-6 Astra | 70 vs 59 category score | High |
| Maths | GPT-6 Astra | 78 vs 59 category score | High |
| Reasoning | GPT-6 Astra | 86 vs 64 category score; LMCA 64.1% vs 44.9% | High |
| Knowledge | Gemini 3.6 Flash | 64 vs 56 category score | High |
| Chat quality (human preference) | – | Only Gemini 3.6 Flash has an Arena rating (68 category score) | Not comparable |
| Lowest cost | Gemini 3.6 Flash | $1.50 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.060 vs $0.800; from 1 Jan 2027: $3.00 vs $20.00 | – |
| Fastest first answer | GPT-6 Astra | 3.0 s (GPT-6 Astra) vs 13.9 s (Gemini 3.6 Flash (high)) to the first answer token | – |
| High volume on a budget | Neither flagship | A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs | – |
Key differences
- GPT-6 Astra leads on quality: 68.2 vs 61.3.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is stronger in human preference, knowledge, long context, multimodal.
- GPT-6 Astra is stronger in agents & tools, coding, maths, reasoning, composite.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) is 13× cheaper ($1.50 vs $20.00 per 1M blended) until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00 vs $20.00 from 1 Jan 2027.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) streams 5.2× faster (208 vs 40 tokens per second).
At a glance
| Spec | Gemini 3.6 Flash | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | OpenAI | |
| Released | 21 Jul 2026 | 2 Sept 2026 |
| Context window (tokens) | 1,048,576 | 1,050,000 |
| Compared at | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra |
| Open weights | No | No |
| Price in / out / cached input per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 / $0.075 | $10.00 / $50.00 / $1.00 |
| Announced price change | $1.50 / $7.50 / $0.150 from 1 Jan 2027 | None announced |
Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: ai.google.dev pricing (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.
Category by category
Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.
| Category | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning | 64.0 | 85.6 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Coding | 57.0 | 83.2 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Agents & tools | 59.3 | 69.6 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Maths | 59.4 | 77.5 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Knowledge | 63.8 | 55.7 | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
| Human preference | 67.5 | – | not comparable |
| Multimodal | 65.2 | – | not comparable |
| Long context | 64.8 | – | not comparable |
| Composite | – | 73.7 | not comparable |
Where sources disagree
Across the 2 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 0, GPT-6 Astra leads 2. Independent sources split: Gemini 3.6 Flash leads on Arena Text; GPT-6 Astra leads on BenchLeader Index.
| Overall index | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 61.3 | 68.2 | GPT-6 Astra |
| Arena Text | 1483 | 1477† | Gemini 3.6 Flash |
Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).
Price, speed and latency
List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.
| Measure | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|
| Blended price per 1M tokens, until 31 Dec 2026 | $1.50 | $20.00 |
| Input / output per 1M | $0.750 / $3.75 | $10.00 / $50.00 |
| Blended price per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $3.00 | $20.00 |
| Input / output per 1M from 1 Jan 2027 | $1.50 / $7.50 | $10.00 / $50.00 |
| Cached input per 1M | $0.075 | $1.00 |
| Price per task: chat reply | $0.0014 | $0.019 |
| Price per task: summarize a 30-page report | $0.011 | $0.150 |
| Price per task: code edit | $0.010 | $0.135 |
| Price per task: agentic coding session | $0.060 | $0.800 |
| Price per task: structured extraction | $0.0023 | $0.030 |
| Output speed | 208 tok/s | 40 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 13.9 s | 3.0 s |
| Time to a complete answer | 16.3 s | – |
Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) scores 61.3 and takes 14 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.6 Flash scores 49.5 in 1 s. GPT-6 Astra scores 68.2 and takes 3 s to its first answer token; GPT-6 Astra (max) scores 67.7 in 232 s, GPT-6 Astra (high) scores 66.8 in 33 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.
Every benchmark
152 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | BenchLeader | 61.3 | 68.2 |
| Agents & tools score | BenchLeader | 59.3 | 69.6 |
| Coding score | BenchLeader | 57.0 | 83.2 |
| Human preference score | BenchLeader | 67.5 | – |
| Knowledge score | BenchLeader | 63.8 | 55.7 |
| Long context score | BenchLeader | 64.8 | – |
| Maths score | BenchLeader | 59.4 | 77.5 |
| Multimodal score | BenchLeader | 65.2 | – |
| Reasoning score | BenchLeader | 64.0 | 85.6 |
| Composite score | BenchLeader | – | 73.7 |
| Blended price $/M | BenchLeader | $1.50 | $20.00 |
| Output speed | BenchLeader | 208 tok/s | 40 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | BenchLeader | 13.9 s | 3.0 s |
| Context window | BenchLeader | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,050,000 tokens |
| Reasoning | |||
| GPQA Diamond | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.1% | 95.8%† |
| Humanity's Last Exam | Scale AI / CAIS | – | 54.8% |
| Arena Hard Prompts | Arena (LMArena) | 1501 | 1501† |
| LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | – | 92.7% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning | LiveBench | 85.2% | 92.7%† |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 92.8% | 96.1%† |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 40.8% | 54.7%† |
| HLE-Diamond (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 63.8%† |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Vals AI | 93.4% | – |
| ARC-AGI-1 | ARC Prize | 91.2% | 97.5%† |
| ARC-AGI-2 | ARC Prize | 60.4% | 95.0%† |
| ARC-AGI-3 | ARC Prize | – | 98.6%† |
| CritPt | Artificial Analysis | 10.6% | 31.7%† |
| CritPt v2 hard subset (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 70.5%† |
| MysteryMechanism | Vals AI | – | 53.1%† |
| Chess Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 40.0% | 74.0%† |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 30.0% | 84.0%† |
| LMCA | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 44.9% | 64.1% |
| DTBench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 95.5% | 97.1% |
| ForecastBench | ForecastBench | 65.9%† | – |
| BTF-3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 13.5%† |
| Coding | |||
| SciCode | SciCode | 53.4% | 56.5%† |
| WeirdML | WeirdML | 56.1% | 93.3%† |
| FrontierCode | Cognition | 34.4%† | 53.3%† |
| GSO-Bench | GSO-Bench | – | 79.4% |
Show all 152 benchmarks
| Metric | Publisher | Gemini 3.6 Flash (high) | GPT-6 Astra |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | |||
| Arena Coding | Arena (LMArena) | 1518 | 1543† |
| Arena WebDev | Arena (LMArena) | 1537 | 1774† |
| LiveBench 2.0 Coding | LiveBench | – | 93.7% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Coding | LiveBench | 77.9% | 80.4%† |
| LiveCodeBench | Vals AI | 88.1% | – |
| IOI | Vals AI | 35.1% | 100.0%† |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Vals AI | 79.6% | – |
| Code Migration | Vals AI | 30.9% | 67.7%† |
| Code Migration v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 80.6%† |
| ProgramBench | Vals AI | 0.0% | 5.5%† |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | Vals AI | – | 43.3%† |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 | Vals AI | – | 27.6%† |
| Vibe Code Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 64.0% | 89.6%† |
| SWE Atlas: Codebase QnA | Scale AI SEAL | – | 59.1%† |
| SWE Atlas: Refactoring | Scale AI SEAL | – | 59.0%† |
| SWE Atlas: Test Writing | Scale AI SEAL | – | 50.7%† |
| MirrorCode | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 46.7%† |
| DeepSWE v1.1 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 46.7% | 73.2%† |
| ALE-Bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 715.5 | 2951.3† |
| FrontierSWE | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 65.5%† |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 7.1% | 59.1%† |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 77.5% | 88.4%† |
| Startrise Frontend | Startrise | – | 79.9% |
| FrontierCode 1.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 47.0%† |
| FrontierCode 2.0 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 42.4%† |
| Agents & tools | |||
| Terminal-Bench | Terminal-Bench | – | 58.2%† |
| Remote Labor Index | Scale AI / CAIS | – | 20.8% |
| APEX-Agents | Mercor | 46.9%† | 64.7% |
| Arena Agent | Arena (LMArena) | – | 14† |
| LiveBench Long Agentic | LiveBench | – | 77.5% |
| LiveBench Browser | LiveBench | – | 91.3% |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | LiveBench | 43.4% | 57.3%† |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Vals AI | 73.8% | 87.3%† |
| HiL-Bench | Scale AI SEAL | – | 65.3% |
| GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised score | Artificial Analysis | – | 53.7%† |
| GDPval-AA v2.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 1584† |
| τ³-Banking (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 29.9% | 41.4%† |
| ITBench SRE (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 48.6%† |
| Analyst Agent (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 51.3%† |
| CUA-bench | Vals AI | – | 19.2%† |
| CyberBench | Vals AI | 45.4% | 41.1%† |
| Finance Agent v2 | Vals AI | 56.3% | 53.5%† |
| Finance Agent v2.1 | Vals AI | – | 60.4%† |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 7.1%† |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1 | Vals AI | 3.3% | 5.4%† |
| Legal Research Bench | Vals AI | 25.0% | 39.4%† |
| Robo-bench | Vals AI | – | 23.3%† |
| SREBench | Vals AI | – | 56.9%† |
| Tax Agent Bench | Vals AI | 18.0% | 20.7%† |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals) | Vals AI | – | 59.6%† |
| Terminal-Bench Science | Vals AI | 4.3% | 62.9%† |
| Time Horizon Index: KSP | Vals AI | – | 90.5%† |
| Arena Search | Arena (LMArena) | – | 1246† |
| BALROG | BALROG | – | 68.3%† |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Andon Labs | – | 15514.7 |
| AutomationBench | Artificial Analysis | 53.0% | 68.5%† |
| GDP.pdf (AA) | Artificial Analysis | 17.4% | 31.0%† |
| Harvey LAB-AA v1.1 | Harvey | – | 8.6%† |
| AA-Briefcase v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 1568† |
| Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 63.3%† |
| CWE-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 63.3%† |
| DeepSec-Bench (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 36.9%† |
| CyberGym end-to-end (AA) | Artificial Analysis | – | 0.0%† |
| FACTS Search | 68.2%† | 89.9% | |
| Maths | |||
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 59.0% | 93.7%† |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 21.9% | 97.6%† |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 94.2% | 100.0%† |
| ProofBench | Vals AI | 36.0%† | 99.0% |
| LiveBench Mathematics | LiveBench | 86.4% | 96.8%† |
| AIME 2026 | MathArena | 96.7%† | – |
| HMMT February 2026 | MathArena | 89.4%† | – |
| MathArena Apex | MathArena | 26.0%† | – |
| Arena Maths | Arena (LMArena) | 1504 | 1487† |
| Knowledge | |||
| SimpleQA Verified | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 66.2% | 75.6%† |
| LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | – | 83.0% |
| LiveBench Research | LiveBench | – | 85.2% |
| LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis | LiveBench | 63.0% | 83.0%† |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | – | 42.4† |
| MMLU-Pro | Vals AI | 89.3% | – |
| LegalBench | Vals AI | 86.7% | – |
| CorpFin | Vals AI | 63.3% | – |
| TaxEval | Vals AI | 74.9% | – |
| PRBench Finance | Scale AI SEAL | – | 47.5% |
| PRBench Legal | Scale AI SEAL | – | 48.4% |
| BioMysteryBench | Vals AI | 58.5% | 79.3%† |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark | Vals AI | 65.4% | 71.7%† |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1 | Vals AI | – | 72.7%† |
| MedCode | Vals AI | 53.1% | 48.5%† |
| MedScribe | Vals AI | 79.7% | 87.9%† |
| Public Benefits Bench v1.1 | Vals AI | 56.6% | – |
| DrugDiscoveryBench | Scale AI SEAL | – | 68.7%† |
| EBR-bench | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | – | 76.2%† |
| GDP.pdf | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 14.0% | 34.2%† |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy | Artificial Analysis | – | 61.6%† |
| AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination | Artificial Analysis | – | 50.2%† |
| HealthBench Professional (AA) | OpenAI | – | 66.0%† |
| Instruction following | |||
| LiveBench Language | LiveBench | 83.9% | 89.4%† |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | LiveBench | 75.4% | 75.6%† |
| Arena Instruction Following | Arena (LMArena) | 1473 | 1473† |
| Human preference | |||
| Arena Text | Arena (LMArena) | 1483 | 1477† |
| Arena Creative Writing | Arena (LMArena) | 1471 | 1450† |
| Arena Multi-turn | Arena (LMArena) | 1488 | 1485† |
| Arena Longer Queries | Arena (LMArena) | 1485 | 1489† |
| Multimodal | |||
| Arena Vision | Arena (LMArena) | 1299 | 1280† |
| LiveBench Design | LiveBench | – | 82.0% |
| MMMU-Pro | Artificial Analysis | 83.2% | 86.9%† |
| MMMU-Pro (Vals) | Vals AI | 88.4% | – |
| MortgageTax | Vals AI | 67.6% | – |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 31.2%† | 49.7% |
| Code2Video-AA | Artificial Analysis | – | 1427† |
| AA-3D | Artificial Analysis | – | 1164† |
| Long context | |||
| AA-LCR v1.1 | Artificial Analysis | 80.0% | 80.7%† |
| Arena Document | Arena (LMArena) | 1453 | 1473† |
| MLCR | Artificial Analysis | 10.0% | 41.7%† |
| Composite | |||
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub | 154.5† | 168.8 |
| LiveBench 2.0 | LiveBench | – | 85.6% |
| LiveBench 1.0 | LiveBench | 73.6% | 82.2%† |
| AA Intelligence Index v5.0 | Artificial Analysis | – | 56.9† |
| AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2 | Artificial Analysis | 34.0 | 52.7† |
| AA Progress Index v1 | Artificial Analysis | 305.7 | 349.6† |
| Vals Index | Vals AI | – | 65.0† |
| Vals Finance Index | Vals AI | – | 55.6%† |
| Vals RSI Index | Vals AI | – | 27.1%† |
| Vals Science Index | Vals AI | – | 65.1%† |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Vals AI | 65.1% | – |
| Vals Router Index | Vals AI | – | 65.0% |
| AA Cyber Index | Artificial Analysis | – | 33.4† |
Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
What changed
- Gemini 3.6 Flash: list price moves to $1.50 / $7.50 per 1M input / output tokens (announced).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 61.8 → 61.2.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
- GPT-6 Astra: 3 score revisions.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
- GPT-6 Astra: 1 new result (Vals Router Index).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
- GPT-6 Astra: 1 score revision.
- GPT-6 Astra: 8 new results (LiveBench 2.0, LiveBench Long Agentic, LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning…).
- Gemini 3.6 Flash (high): 3 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR).
Related comparisons
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Claude Opus 5.5
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Claude Fable 5.1
- GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Opus 5.5
- GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-6.1 Sol
- GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Fable 5.1
- GPT-6 Astra vs Claude Fable 5
- Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra
Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra: questions
- Is GPT-6 Astra better than Gemini 3.6 Flash?
- GPT-6 Astra leads on quality: 68.2 vs 61.3. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-6 Astra is ahead overall as of 29 Oct 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra: which is cheaper, and will that change?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash is cheaper today: $1.50 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. Gemini 3.6 Flash's current price runs until 31 Dec 2026, then $3.00.
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6 Astra better for coding?
- GPT-6 Astra scores higher in coding (83 vs 57 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is faster, Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6 Astra?
- Gemini 3.6 Flash streams 3×+ faster (208 vs 40 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
- Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or GPT-6 Astra better for agents and tool use?
- GPT-6 Astra scores higher in agentic tasks (70 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average).
More questions (4)
- Which is better for long documents?
- Both take about 1.1M tokens: Gemini 3.6 Flash 1,048,576, GPT-6 Astra 1,050,000.
- Which has lower latency?
- GPT-6 Astra answers first: 3.0 s against 13.9 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
- Do independent benchmarks agree on Gemini 3.6 Flash vs GPT-6 Astra?
- Across the 2 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 0, GPT-6 Astra leads 2. Independent sources split: Gemini 3.6 Flash leads on Arena Text; GPT-6 Astra leads on BenchLeader Index.
- When was GPT-6 Astra released?
- GPT-6 Astra was released on 2 Sept 2026.