Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
Gemini 2.5 Flash comes out ahead, 84 to 40 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
- Our pick
GoogleGemini 2.5 Flash
84/100- ECI140.6
- Price$0.30 / $2.50
- Context1.05M
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
40/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Gemini 2.5 Flash is our pick
Gemini 2.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceGemini 2.5 FlashGemini 2.5 Flash $0.85 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextGemini 2.5 FlashGemini 2.5 Flash 1,048,576 · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 tokens
- Widest inputsGemini 2.5 FlashGemini 2.5 Flash: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 100 | 35 |
| Context window | 40% | 61 | 49 |
| Overall | 100% | 84/100 | 40/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 140.6 | — |
| ECI rank | #110 of 165 | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 71.5% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 67.5% |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.30 | — |
| Output | $2.50 | — |
| Cached input | $0.03 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.85 | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Official Google API | — |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens (best) | 524,288 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No |
| PDFs | Yes | No |
| Audio | Yes | No |
| Video | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | gemini-2.5-flash | — |
| API providers | 32 | — |
| Released | Jun 17, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2025 | Jul 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash$8.00
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Gemini 2.5 Flash or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Gemini 2.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Gemini 2.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.30 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official Google API price). . At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.85 per million tokens for Gemini 2.5 Flash versus . Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Gemini 2.5 Flash has an ECI of 140.6 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemini 2.5 Flash and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 524,288 for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Gemini 2.5 Flash up to 65,536, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Gemini 2.5 Flash accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text. Gemini 2.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is the newest, released Aug 20, 2025. Gemini 2.5 Flash came out Jun 17, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Gemini 2.5 Flash Jan 2025, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Add DeepSeek R1 0528Three-way comparison
- Gemini 2.5 Flash vs DeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeek · ECI 141.2
- Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Kimi K2 InstructMoonshot AI · ECI 139.9
- Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Alibaba (Qwen) · ECI 143.8
- Gemini 2.5 Flash vs GPT-5 MiniOpenAI · ECI 145.4
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic · ECI 142.2
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs GPT-5 NanoOpenAI · ECI 139.3
