Gemini 3 Flash Vision vs Llama 4 Maverick Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared Gemini 3 Flash Vision and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the stronger average benchmark score; Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Gemini 3 Flash Vision
Gemini 3 Flash Vision is a multimodal model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $15.06 per million input tokens and $82.14 per million output tokens, and averages 81.9 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $15.06 / 1M
- Output
- $82.14 / 1M
- Context
- 400,000
- Avg score
- 81.9
- Open weights
- No
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.33 per million input tokens and $23.04 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.33 / 1M
- Output
- $23.04 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $15.06 | $5.33 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $82.14 | $23.04 | B |
| Context window | 400,000 | 200,000 | A |
| Max output | 32,768 | 16,384 | A |
| Average score | 81.9 | 81.7 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1430.3 | 1438.5 | B |
| Open weights | No | Yes | B |
Benchmark comparison
Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 6, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Vision | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 81.8 | 84.6 | 2.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 75.7 | 79.5 | 3.8 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 71.4 | 69.1 | 2.3 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| HumanEval | 84.5 | 85.0 | 0.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| MATH-500 | 87.5 | 83.4 | 4.1 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| AIME 2025 | 82.4 | 79.9 | 2.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| LiveCodeBench | 73.2 | 75.8 | 2.6 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| IFEval | 86.9 | 88.9 | 2.0 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| TruthfulQA | 85.5 | 84.0 | 1.5 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| HellaSwag | 91.5 | 89.6 | 1.9 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| MMMU | 80.3 | 79.0 | 1.3 | Gemini 3 Flash Vision |
| Arena Elo | 1430.3 | 1438.5 | 8.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Flash Vision costs about $31.83 per million tokens and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct costs about $9.76. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is roughly 69% cheaper than Gemini 3 Flash Vision. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 6, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads Llama 4 Maverick Instruct by 0.2 points (81.9 versus 81.7).
The price picture favours Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. The context picture favours Gemini 3 Flash Vision. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Gemini 3 Flash Vision if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick Instruct if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need open weights for self-hosting or fine-tuning.
FAQ
Is Gemini 3 Flash Vision better than Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
On the index average, Gemini 3 Flash Vision leads Llama 4 Maverick Instruct by 0.2 points (81.9 versus 81.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Flash Vision wins 6 benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 6.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Vision or Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.76 per million tokens, versus $31.83 for Gemini 3 Flash Vision.
Which has the larger context window?
Gemini 3 Flash Vision has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has 200,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Gemini 3 Flash Vision is proprietary; Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Gemini 3 Flash Vision for quality-sensitive work and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.