Gemini 4 Argon vs Nano Banana 2.1
Nano Banana 2.1 costs 1.3x less per output token than Gemini 4 Argon ($7.50 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; no benchmark has tested both models yet.
- Coding
- 81.0
- Overall
- 84.0
- Output $/M
- $10.00
- Coding
- No data
- Overall
- No data
- Output $/M
- $7.50
Gemini 4 Argon or Nano Banana 2.1: which to pick
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nano Banana 2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Nano Banana 2.1 for output tokens 1.3x cheaper ($7.50 vs $10.00 per million).
No benchmark has tested both yet. Gemini 4 Argon has results on LiveBench coding, LMArena WebDev and Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI); Nano Banana 2.1 on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos. 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 4 Argon has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a AA Intelligence Index result, 52.6.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Design Arena: websites result, 1316.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a Vals Index result, 69.2%.
Directional only
Image generation
Design Arena: images
No call
Only Nano Banana 2.1 has a Design Arena: images result, 1291.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 4 Argon
Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens against 66K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Nano Banana 2.1
Gemini 4 Argon $0.0070, Nano Banana 2.1 $0.0053 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 4 Argon 81.0 from 5 benchmarks, Nano Banana 2.1 not benchmarked.
- 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
- Gemini 4 Argon $10.00 against Nano Banana 2.1 $7.50 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 4 Argon takes 1.05M tokens, Nano Banana 2.1 66K.
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 Index22 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1678 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 57.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 91.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 68.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 2.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 57.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 56.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 21.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 77.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SciCode | 61.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierCode | 47.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierSWE | 55.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MirrorCode | 58.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2100.1 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1546 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1556 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1692 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1643 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SciCode | 12.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | 99.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 52.6 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.4 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index18 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1171 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench browser | 92.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 65.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 44.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 54.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 27.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 76.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 44.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vals Science Index | 55.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 52.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 4.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Robo-bench (Vals AI) | 0.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| APEX-Agents | 82.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $13,718 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 45.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 96.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 91.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| EBR-bench | 64.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1546 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1550 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Scale run) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| ProofBench | 99.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1536 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1557 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MathArena | 69.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 88.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 58.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1555 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1548 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1525 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| PRBench Finance | 49.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| PRBench Legal | 49.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1316 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1333 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1377 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1332 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1389 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1329 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench design | 73.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index22 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 69.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 85.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 53.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| DTBench | 97.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMCA | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Furniture assembly | 72.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text | 1532 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1534 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1527 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1538 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1522 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1611 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1503 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1534 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1556 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1547 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1529 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1527 | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| MultiChallenge | 78.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 4 Argon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
Image generationDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards measured
| Benchmark | Gemini 4 Argon | Nano Banana 2.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: images | Not measured | 1291 | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| Design Arena: graphic design | Not measured | 1333 | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| Design Arena: logos | Not measured | 1277 | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| LMArena Text to Image | Not measured | 1328 | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
| LMArena Image Edit | Not measured | 1426 | Only Nano Banana 2.1 measured |
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
Nano Banana 2.1 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Nano Banana 2.1 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Nano Banana 2.1 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 Gemini 4 Argon | Google Nano Banana 2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | ||
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 13, 2026 | October 6, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 66K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $1.50 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $7.50 |
| Coding index | 81.0 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 4 Argon better than Nano Banana 2.1 for coding?
Only Gemini 4 Argon has a coding score, 81.0 on the Vibe Coding Index; Nano Banana 2.1 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Nano Banana 2.1 for output tokens 1.3x cheaper ($7.50 vs $10.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Gemini 4 Argon or Nano Banana 2.1?
Gemini 4 Argon costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; Nano Banana 2.1 costs $1.50 and $7.50. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 4 Argon or Nano Banana 2.1?
Gemini 4 Argon, with 1.05M tokens against 66K.
Has any benchmark tested both Gemini 4 Argon and Nano Banana 2.1?
No benchmark has tested both yet. Gemini 4 Argon has results on LiveBench coding, LMArena WebDev and Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI); Nano Banana 2.1 on Design Arena: images, Design Arena: graphic design and Design Arena: logos. Compare them on price and context instead. Data as of October 22, 2026.