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Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon

Gemini 4 Argon leads Gemini 3.6 Flash on coding, 81.0 to 62.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Gemini 3.6 Flash costs 2.7x less per output token ($3.75 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 72 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Gemini 3.6 Flash Replace Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle
Coding
62.5
Overall
68.3
Output $/M
$3.75
2
Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle
Coding
81.0
Overall
84.0
Output $/M
$10.00
70
vs boards won of 72 shared

Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon: which to pick

Pick Gemini 4 Argon for coding: it scores 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 62.5 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.

Pick Gemini 3.6 Flash for output tokens 2.7x cheaper ($3.75 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) or Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.

Model AGemini 3.6 FlashGoogle62.5/1004 independent benchmarks$1.49 per solved taskModel BGemini 4 ArgonGoogle81.0/1005 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
Shared results
72
Gemini 3.6 Flash only
37
Gemini 4 Argon only
22
Like-for-like categories
8 of 9

Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.

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.

At a glance

Coding index
Gemini 3.6 Flash 62.5 from 4 benchmarks, Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks.
Widest category
Math, 27.9 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
IOI (Vals AI): Gemini 3.6 Flash 35.1% against Gemini 4 Argon 100.0%, 64.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Gemini 3.6 Flash $3.75 against Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 per million output tokens, 2.7x apart.
Context window
Both take 1.05M tokens.

Benchmark by benchmark

First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.

Boards won, where both have a result
CategoryGemini 3.6 FlashBarsGemini 4 ArgonTies
Coding114
Intelligence02
Agentic work08
Reasoning09
Math06
Knowledge07
Web design06
General118
All shared boards270
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index114
Coding benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
LiveBench codingNot measured89.7%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
LMArena WebDev15381678Gemini 4 Argon
AA Coding Index69.2Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)88.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)79.6%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)Not measured57.6%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)64.0%91.9%Gemini 4 Argon
Code migration (Vals AI)30.9%68.2%Gemini 4 Argon
ProgramBench (Vals AI)0.0%2.5%Gemini 4 Argon
IOI (Vals AI)35.1%100.0%Gemini 4 Argon
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)73.8%57.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash
SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI)Not measured56.0%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)Not measured21.2%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)45.4%77.9%Gemini 4 Argon
SciCode53.4%61.8%Gemini 4 Argon
FrontierCode34.4%47.5%Gemini 4 Argon
FrontierSWENot measured55.0%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
WeirdML56.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
MirrorCodeNot measured58.9%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
ALE-Bench715.52100.1Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: coding14911546Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: software and IT14921556Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena WebDev: React15281692Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena WebDev: HTML15471643Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena WebDev: from an image1545Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SciCode10.8%12.3%Gemini 4 Argon
Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
Intelligence benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
AA Intelligence Index34.052.6Gemini 4 Argon
Epoch Capabilities Index154.5166.4Gemini 4 Argon
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
Agentic work benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
AA Agentic Index29.0Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps1197Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps1181Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps1198Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps1204Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building games1180Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: HTML slides1099Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides1121Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets10711157Gemini 4 Argon
LiveBench researchNot measured83.1%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
LiveBench browserNot measured92.0%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
LiveBench long agenticNot measured69.9%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
SREBench (Vals AI)Not measured44.3%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)56.3%65.4%Gemini 4 Argon
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)18.0%44.6%Gemini 4 Argon
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)25.0%54.8%Gemini 4 Argon
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI)Not measured27.1%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)65.4%75.2%Gemini 4 Argon
BioMysteryBench (Vals AI)58.5%76.3%Gemini 4 Argon
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)4.3%44.3%Gemini 4 Argon
Vals Science IndexNot measured55.4%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Time Horizon Index (Vals AI)Not measured52.5%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
CUA-bench (Vals AI)Not measured4.8%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Robo-bench (Vals AI)Not measured0.8%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
APEX-Agents46.9%82.4%Gemini 4 Argon
Vending-Bench 2Not measured$13,718Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index09
Reasoning benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
GPQA Diamond93.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveBench reasoningNot measured95.1%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
MysteryMechanism (Vals AI)Not measured45.5%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)88.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)92.8%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)40.8%57.1%Gemini 4 Argon
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)94.1%96.4%Gemini 4 Argon
ARC-AGI91.2%98.5%Gemini 4 Argon
ARC-AGI-260.4%91.3%Gemini 4 Argon
Chess puzzles42.0%59.0%Gemini 4 Argon
Mystery game puzzles30.0%64.0%Gemini 4 Argon
EBR-benchNot measured64.8%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts14861546Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: expert14901550Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14841548Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Vision: diagrams1314Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: homework1314Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Math benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
OTIS Mock AIME94.2%100.0%Gemini 4 Argon
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 358.9%86.0%Gemini 4 Argon
FrontierMath, tier 422.0%78.0%Gemini 4 Argon
ProofBench36.0%99.0%Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: math15081536Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: mathematical work14921557Gemini 4 Argon
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
Knowledge benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
MMLU Pro89.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)86.7%88.3%Gemini 4 Argon
CorpFin (Vals AI)63.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
TaxEval (Vals AI)74.9%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
MortgageTax (Vals AI)67.6%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
MedCode (Vals AI)53.1%58.8%Gemini 4 Argon
SimpleQA Verified66.2%76.0%Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: science14891548Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14691555Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: legal and government14791548Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: business and finance14641525Gemini 4 Argon
FACTS Benchmark Suite65.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Web design benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
Design Arena: websites13001315Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: UI components12941333Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: game dev12631377Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: data viz12891332Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: 3D12711388Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: all code categories12891329Gemini 4 Argon
Design Arena: ASCII art1281Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveBench designNot measured73.7%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index118
General benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
Vals IndexNot measured69.2%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
LiveBench data analysisNot measured85.2%Only Gemini 4 Argon measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)56.6%69.8%Gemini 4 Argon
SAGE (Vals AI)48.7%53.6%Gemini 4 Argon
MedScribe (Vals AI)79.7%87.4%Gemini 4 Argon
Vals Multimodal Index65.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)80.0%79.7%Gemini 3.6 Flash
DTBench95.5%97.6%Gemini 4 Argon
LMCA44.9%63.7%Gemini 4 Argon
Furniture assembly23.3%72.5%Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text14801532Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: instruction following14671534Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: creative writing14661527Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Vision1299Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: English14821538Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: non-English14701522Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: Chinese15311611Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: German1480Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Japanese1475Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Korean1429Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: French1503Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Spanish14761503Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: Russian14881534Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: Polish1473Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn14811556Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: longer queries14751547Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: writing and language14701529Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14561527Gemini 4 Argon
LMArena Vision: English1295Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese1357Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: reading text1312Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: humor1289Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing1278Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Document1456Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
Image generation benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 ArgonLeader
Neither model has a result on 5 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 3.6 Flash$0.0026Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.0070Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.049Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.130Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Gemini 3.6 Flash$0.188Fits in one request
Gemini 4 Argon$0.500Fits in one request

Gemini 3.6 Flash 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.

Specifications of Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Argon
SpecificationGoogle Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle Gemini 4 Argon
MakerGoogleGoogle
WeightsNo public weights listedNo public weights listed
ReleasedJuly 21, 2026October 13, 2026
Context window1.05M1.05M
Input $/Mtok$0.75$2.00
Output $/Mtok$3.75$10.00
Coding index62.581.0
Independent measurements behind it45
Cost per solved task$1.49Not computable
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Gemini 4 Argon for coding?

Pick Gemini 4 Argon for coding: it scores 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 62.5 for Gemini 3.6 Flash. Pick Gemini 3.6 Flash for output tokens 2.7x cheaper ($3.75 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) or Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon?

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 and $10.00. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3.6 Flash only.

Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Argon?

Neither: both take 1.05M tokens.

How many benchmarks is the Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon comparison based on?

72 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemini 3.6 Flash's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Gemini 4 Argon's on 5. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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<p style="font:13px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:6px 0 0">Source: <a href="https://llmbenchmark.ai/compare/gemini-3-6-flash-vs-gemini-4-argon">LLMBenchmark.ai, Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Argon</a></p>