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Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon

Gemini 4 Carbon leads Gemini 3.6 Flash on coding, 86.6 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 November 14, 2026; 52 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Gemini 3.6 Flash Replace Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle
Coding
62.5
Overall
72.5
Output $/M
$3.75
1
Gemini 4 CarbonGoogle
Coding
86.6
Overall
88.3
Output $/M
$10.00
51
vs boards won of 52 shared

Gemini 3.6 Flash or Gemini 4 Carbon: which to pick

Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 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 Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.

Model AGemini 3.6 FlashGoogle62.5/1004 independent benchmarks$1.49 per solved taskModel BGemini 4 CarbonGoogle86.6/1004 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
Shared results
52
Gemini 3.6 Flash only
62
Gemini 4 Carbon only
21
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 Carbon 86.6 from 4 benchmarks.
Widest category
Math, 36.4 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
FrontierMath, tier 4: Gemini 3.6 Flash 22.0% against Gemini 4 Carbon 95.1%, 73.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Gemini 3.6 Flash $3.75 against Gemini 4 Carbon $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 CarbonTies
Coding08
Intelligence01
Agentic work05
Reasoning08
Math05
Knowledge06
Web design05
General113
All shared boards151
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index08
Coding benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
LiveBench codingNot measured91.0%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
LMArena WebDev15381768Gemini 4 Carbon
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 measured63.1%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)64.0%89.1%Gemini 4 Carbon
Code migration (Vals AI)30.9%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
ProgramBench (Vals AI)0.0%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
IOI (Vals AI)35.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)73.8%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)45.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SciCode53.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run)7.1%65.2%Gemini 4 Carbon
FrontierCode 2.0Not measured40.6%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
FrontierCode34.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
FrontierSWENot measured61.2%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
WeirdML56.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
MirrorCode23.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
ALE-Bench715.52374.7Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: coding14921564Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: software and IT14931552Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena WebDev: React15261792Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena WebDev: HTML15481770Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena WebDev: from an image1545Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
SciCode10.8%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
GameBench 263.0Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
CursorBench 4.0Not measured60.4%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
ProgramBench0.5%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
Intelligence benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
AA Intelligence IndexNot measured60.0Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Epoch Capabilities Index155.2169.8Gemini 4 Carbon
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
Agentic work benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
AA Agentic Index29.0Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps1173Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps1155Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps11891284Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: agents building Android apps1194Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: agents building games1121Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: HTML slides1043Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides1107Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets10431224Gemini 4 Carbon
LiveBench researchNot measured92.5%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
LiveBench browserNot measured80.0%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
LiveBench long agenticNot measured72.7%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)56.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)18.0%51.8%Gemini 4 Carbon
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)25.0%55.8%Gemini 4 Carbon
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI)Not measured17.5%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)65.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
BioMysteryBench (Vals AI)58.5%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)4.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
APEX-Agents46.9%84.2%Gemini 4 Carbon
Vending-Bench 2Not measured$16,484Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
Reasoning benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
GPQA Diamond93.4%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveBench reasoningNot measured90.6%Only Gemini 4 Carbon 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%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured69.1%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured69.0%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)94.1%96.5%Gemini 4 Carbon
ARC-AGI91.2%98.5%Gemini 4 Carbon
ARC-AGI-260.4%94.2%Gemini 4 Carbon
SimpleBenchNot measured92.6%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Chess puzzles42.0%78.0%Gemini 4 Carbon
Mystery game puzzles30.0%73.0%Gemini 4 Carbon
EBR-benchNot measured87.6%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts14861551Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: expert14891582Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14841545Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Vision: diagrams1316Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: homework1317Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
GoBench1335Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
Math benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
OTIS Mock AIME94.2%100.0%Gemini 4 Carbon
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 358.9%90.5%Gemini 4 Carbon
FrontierMath, tier 422.0%95.1%Gemini 4 Carbon
ProofBench36.0%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: math1505Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: mathematical work14891538Gemini 4 Carbon
MathArena22.0%85.4%Gemini 4 Carbon
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
Knowledge benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
MMLU Pro89.3%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)86.7%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
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%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
AA-OmniscienceNot measured53.5Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
SimpleQA Verified66.2%77.7%Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: science14901535Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14691525Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: legal and government14781542Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: business and finance14661520Gemini 4 Carbon
FACTS Benchmark Suite67.5%78.4%Gemini 4 Carbon
PRBench LegalNot measured53.3%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
Web design benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
Design Arena: websites12921319Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: UI components12901357Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: game dev12521326Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: data viz1288Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Design Arena: 3D12491434Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: all code categories12791348Gemini 4 Carbon
Design Arena: ASCII art1276Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LiveBench designNot measured80.2%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index113
General benchmarks for Gemini 3.6 Flash and Gemini 4 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
Vals IndexNot measured70.5%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
LiveBench data analysisNot measured86.5%Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)56.6%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)79.7%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Vals Multimodal Index65.1%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)80.0%79.3%Gemini 3.6 Flash
GDPval-AA12931733Gemini 4 Carbon
DTBench95.5%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMCA44.9%Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Furniture assembly23.3%77.5%Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text14791538Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: instruction following14671539Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: creative writing14661533Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Vision1297Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: English14811530Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: non-English14701534Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: Chinese15331613Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: German1483Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Japanese1476Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Korean1443Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: French1503Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Spanish1473Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: Russian14871560Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: Polish1478Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn14831569Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: longer queries14751549Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: writing and language14701542Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14561527Gemini 4 Carbon
LMArena Vision: English1288Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: Chinese1354Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: reading text1309Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: humor1287Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Vision: creative writing1270Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
LMArena Document1456Not measuredOnly Gemini 3.6 Flash measured
Neither model has a result on the other 15 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 Carbon
BenchmarkGemini 3.6 FlashGemini 4 CarbonLeader
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 Carbon$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 Carbon$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 Carbon$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 Carbon
SpecificationGoogle Gemini 3.6 FlashGoogle Gemini 4 Carbon
MakerGoogleGoogle
WeightsNo public weights listedNo public weights listed
ReleasedJuly 21, 2026November 10, 2026
Context window1.05M1.05M
Input $/Mtok$0.75$2.00
Output $/Mtok$3.75$10.00
Coding index62.586.6
Independent measurements behind it44
Cost per solved task$1.49Not computable
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

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

Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 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 Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.

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

Gemini 3.6 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Carbon 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 Carbon?

Neither: both take 1.05M tokens.

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

52 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. Gemini 3.6 Flash's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Gemini 4 Carbon's on 4. 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-carbon">LLMBenchmark.ai, Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon</a></p>