Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview costs 1.7x less per output token than Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) ($1.50 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $2.50
- Coding
- 22.7
- Overall
- 36.6
- Output $/M
- $1.50
Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview: which to pick
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a coding score, 22.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
No benchmark has tested both yet. Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has results on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview on LMArena WebDev, AA Coding Index and LiveCodeBench (Vals AI). Compare them on price and context instead.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a AA Intelligence Index result, 15.6.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.6.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a GPQA Diamond result, 81.1%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a AIME result, 83.3%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a MMLU Pro result, 86.2%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a Design Arena: websites result, 1083.
Directional only
Image generation
Design Arena: images
No call
Only Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has a Design Arena: images result, 1179.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview takes 1.05M tokens against 33K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview
Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) $0.0015, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has the number, $0.18.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) not benchmarked, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview 22.7 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- None yet: no category has been tested on both models.
- Widest single gap
- None yet: no benchmark has tested both models.
- Output price
- Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) $2.50 against Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview $1.50 per million output tokens, 1.7x apart.
- Context window
- Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) takes 33K tokens, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview 1.05M.
Benchmark by benchmark
Every board either model has a result on, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale. Only one model is measured on each, so no row names a leader.
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index15 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1257 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 34.7 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 80.1% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.8% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 4.6% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 34.1% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 797.7 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1400 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1413 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1245 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1276 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1336 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 4.6% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 15.6 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 1.6 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 30.0% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.1% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.4% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 8.6% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 81.1% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.5% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1407 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1398 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1403 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1242 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1271 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 83.3% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1428 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1417 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 86.2% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.8% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.0% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 71.8% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.0% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.6% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1425 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1428 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1418 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1389 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | Not measured | 51.4% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1083 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1072 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1029 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1045 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1048 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1072 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1052 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1167 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index28 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 49.5% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.9% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 41.4% | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1416 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1377 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1401 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1240 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1414 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1410 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1460 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1430 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1413 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1392 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1424 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1421 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1420 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1443 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1417 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1394 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1408 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1386 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1232 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1278 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1246 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1266 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1259 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1308 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1248 | Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
Image generationDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index3 boards measured
| Benchmark | Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: images | 1179 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) measured |
| Design Arena: graphic design | 1151 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) measured |
| Design Arena: logos | 1169 | Not measured | Only Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) | Google Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | ||
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 7, 2025 | March 3, 2026 |
| Context window | 33K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.50 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 22.7 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.18 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) better than Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview for coding?
Only Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview has a coding score, 22.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview?
Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview costs $0.25 and $1.50. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview only.
Which has the bigger context window, Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) or Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview, with 1.05M tokens against 33K.
Has any benchmark tested both Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) and Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview?
No benchmark has tested both yet. Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has results on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview on LMArena WebDev, AA Coding Index and LiveCodeBench (Vals AI). Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 21, 2026.