AI Models · Open-Source vs Paid

Llama 4 Maverick Open vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Paid

Llama 4 Maverick vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite — full profile ›

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

Llama 4 MaverickOpenMeta

$0.2 /M input
$0.7 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host

TypeOpen-weight

Context window1M tokens

MultimodalYes

Self-hostYes

Gemini 3.5 Flash LitePaidGoogle

$0.3 /M input
$2.5 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)

TypeProprietary

Context window1M tokens

MultimodalYes

Self-hostNo

Choose Llama 4 Maverick if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

Llama 4 Maverick vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite specs

Spec	Llama 4 Maverick	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Winner
Maker	Meta	Google	–
Type	Open-weight	Proprietary	Llama 4 Maverick
Context window	1M tokens	1M tokens	= Tie
Input price	$0.2/M · free self-host	$0.3/M	Llama 4 Maverick
Output price	$0.7/M · free self-host	$2.5/M	Llama 4 Maverick
Vision / multimodal	Yes	Yes	= Tie
Tool / function calling	Yes	Yes	= Tie
Self-hostable	Yes	No (API only)	Llama 4 Maverick
License	Llama Community	Proprietary	Llama 4 Maverick

Price gap & when to choose each

3.6×cheaper per output token

Llama 4 Maverick is ~3.6× cheaper than Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite on output tokens ($0.7 vs $2.5 per M tokens).

Choose Llama 4 Maverick if…

You want to self-host or run on your cloud
You prioritize data privacy & control
You want the lowest operating costs
You are building open or reproducible AI

Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite if…

You want frontier performance through a managed API
You value reliability & ecosystem
You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

Capability	Llama 4 Maverick	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Open weights (downloadable)	✓	✗
Self-hostable	✓	✗
Runs fully offline	✓	✗
Vision / multimodal	✓	✓
Tool / function calling	✓	✓
1M+ context window	✓	✓

Benchmarks: Llama 4 Maverick vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

Llama 4 Maverick

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

Intelligence index

9.3

22.7

Coding index

16.3

49.3

Math index

19.3

–

GPQA

67.1%

83.8%

MMLU-Pro

80.9%

–

Humanity's Last Exam

4.9%

18.8%

Long Context Reasoning

50%

76%

LiveCodeBench

39.7%

–

SciCode

31.7%

41.3%

MATH-500

88.9%

–

AIME

39%

–

AIME 2025

19.3%

–

IFBench

43%

–

τ²-Bench

17.8%

–

τ-Bench Banking

3.7%

17.5%

Terminal-Bench

7.9%

53.6%

Terminal-Bench Hard

6.8%

–

Speed

96.3 tok/s

345 tok/s

Latency

0.57s

7.71s

Intelligence per $

26.7

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Llama 4 Maverick and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite score

🏆 Best value & openness: Llama 4 Maverick (5.0 vs 3.4 / 5)

Criterion	Llama 4 Maverick	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Cost-efficiency	5.0	4.5
Context window	5.0	5.0
Openness	5.0	1.5
Self-hosting	5.0	1.0
Multimodality	5.0	5.0

Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.

What each model is

Llama 4 Maverick Open

Meta · Open-weight

Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct (128E) is a high-capacity multimodal language model from Meta, built on a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture with 128 experts and 17 billion active parameters per forward...

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite Paid

Google · Proprietary

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is a high-efficiency model from Google with upgraded agentic capabilities. It is suited for subagents that execute focused tasks within complex, multi-agent workflows.

Other models in these families

These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.

Other variants tracked

R1 Distill Llama 70BLlama 3.3 70B InstructLlama 3.1 8B InstructLlama 3.1 70B InstructLlama 4 ScoutHermes 3 70B InstructLlama 3.2 3B InstructLlama 3.2 1B InstructAion-RP 1.0 (8B)Hermes 3 405B InstructLlama 3.1 Euryale 70B v2.2Llama 3.3 Euryale 70BLlama Guard 4 12BLlama 3 8B Lunaris

Other variants tracked

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite (batch)Gemini 3.1 Flash LiteGemini 3.1 Flash Lite (batch)Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteGemini 2.5 Flash Lite (batch)Nano Banana 2 Lite (Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image)

Frequently asked questions

Is Llama 4 Maverick as good as Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite?

Llama 4 Maverick is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite may still lead on the hardest reasoning and agentic work. The gap keeps narrowing — benchmark both on your actual use case before deciding.

Can I run Llama 4 Maverick locally?

Yes. Llama 4 Maverick has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.

How much cheaper is Llama 4 Maverick?

Llama 4 Maverick costs $0.7/M output vs $2.5/M for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite — roughly 4x cheaper via API, and free if you self-host.

Llama 4 Maverick vs Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Llama 4 Maverick if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

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