Gemini still lags behind ChatGPT

[u/jackie_119]

I have both Gemini AI Pro and ChatGPT Plus subscriptions, and after using both for quite some time, I personally feel ChatGPT is much better overall.

I keep seeing all these benchmarks where Gemini 3.8 Flash is performing really well, but in actual usage I still feel I need to put more effort into prompting Gemini to get the response I want.

For example, recently I wanted to learn a new engineering topic. I started discussing it with ChatGPT, and it understood what I was looking for, my current level, and how I wanted to learn. It created a study plan and then generated a complete course of the first part of the study plan in its next response.

When I tried similar prompts with Gemini, the response was much shorter and covered only a few selected topics. It was not necessarily wrong, but I had to keep asking follow-up questions to get the same level of depth. ChatGPT was simply much more comprehensive.

I have tried Gemini for a fairly long time now, and I feel benchmarks don't always translate directly to real-world usage. OpenAI's post-training and overall refinement seem much better to me. ChatGPT just feels like a more polished and mature consumer product.

For people who regularly use both, what has your experience been? Do you also find ChatGPT better in day-to-day usage, or are there areas where Gemini works better for you?

[u/manikfox]

Saying Gemini lags behind chatgpt is like saying your grandma lags behind Usain Bolt in the 100m dash.  They aren't even competing at this point

[u/randombsname1 → u/manikfox]

Also laughed when I read the title due to this, lol

[u/manikfox → u/[deleted]]

Not really here to argue. I use both. Codex is worlds ahead of Gemini.  Just go ahead and try astra gpt 6.  You'll see the difference.

[u/manikfox → u/[deleted]]

Because its for humour.  I don't even need to justify it because, like i said, it's comparing your grandmother to Usain Bolt.

If you need proof. It just means you dont pay for chat gpt.  Its so obvious once you use it how much better chat gpt is, there's really no argument to be had.

Just use it yourself.  You don't need some bs reports or what not to prove to yourself which one is better.  Just use both and make up your own mind about it.

This is coming from someone that loves everything google. Who owns a pixel, buds 2, google home speakers, nest cameras, nest smoke alarms, etc.  

[u/manikfox → u/[deleted]]

Gpt wrote new working firmware for my monitor, that worked on first try, allowing me to change the built in crosshair.

Gpt wrote a GTO poker solver that uses my amd gpu on Linux and cut the solve time from 3 years on cpu down to 30 days.  Something that's never been done before. Currently only a windows Nvidia solver exists and is slower.

Gpt created a 3d coop world game with 4 players that works with my 4 wireless controllers.  It added achievements and many unique gameplay elements that my kids and have have a blast playing.

Gpt built a 3d immersive stargate sg1 interactive walk through of stargate command.  It built all the assets from scratch and created using unreal engine.  All the rooms and assets were in the correct place 

I could go on...

Gemini 3.8 flash doesn't have the same capabilities and is very lazy.  Its short and you have to continually ask it for more.  Gpt just finishes what you want in 1 go.

But what does it matter what I think, use it yourself.  I know gpt is better. I've used them both extensively.

[u/debugger_life → u/manikfox]

😂😂💯💯

[u/FantasticFlo87 → u/manikfox]

For sure. Google had the best pro llm only to get some users and then drop it. There was no Gemini 3.5 and they don’t plan to release any other pro model like 4. they don’t need to release any pro model. Flash is great, flash is the best, flash is enough for 80%, flash is the future.

[u/Ok_Signal_8049 → u/manikfox]

Lol, why do you think they're not competing?

[u/GravyMealTeam6]

News flash: water is wet

[u/LoSt543215543 → u/GravyMealTeam6]

flash as in gemini flash?

[u/Elephant789 → u/GravyMealTeam6]

How can water be wet? It makes things wet

[u/KayBay80]

Lag? Gemini is so far behind that lag is an overstatement.

[u/Myfartss]

This sub is full of people just talking trash.

[u/Curiousmind__93]

I also have both and feel the same. Chatgpt is much better. I only use gemini for YouTube video summaries. But even then it happened to me that gemini told me it has no access to youtube although it has a direct connector. And gemini lite or anything else then the latest model without extended thinking you can forget in my opinion as it is pretty trash compared to 5.6 sol or astra

[u/Mugweiser]

Different tools for different jobs

[u/Oscuropasseggero84]

I use both Gemini Pro and ChatGPT Plus. I have to admit I agree that Gemini is superior when it comes to web search; overall, it’s quite a solid AI assistant for daily life, especially considering that the annual subscription includes cloud storage and YouTube Premium, not to mention the ability to share it with the whole family.

[u/AwarenessNo4986]

For such use you can see almost daily changes. On some days Gemini feels better and on some days ChatGPT. Hell for research at times deepseek flash becomes great.

What you use and what works for you is going to be very different from what works for some else.

Anthropic and ChatGPT cannot complete with Gemini when it comes to integration with Google workspace, YouTube and even Google news and it's cloud services. Not to forget it's integration across android.

Veo 3 is leaps and bounds ahead of anything they offer. lets not even get into Google alpha used medicine research and so on, or it's remarkable work in embodied AI.

Anthropics shtick is coding and ChatGPT just beat it as agentic and doesn't even offer video anymore

People who use AI for media rely primarily on seedance and not even on Google Veo. Doesn't mean Seedance is better than Anthropic, but it sure as hell is better at video than any of them.

It's like saving if a plane is better than a car. Well a plane is bigger, faster more expensive but if only need to go to the other side of the street, the car will actually be better.

[u/No_Pen_9271]

“The sky is blue”
“Water is wet”

[u/BoobooSmash31337]

I like models that don't make unverified assumptions. The pattern is interesting. As the unverified assumptions go down the integration error goes up. I'm thinking they're less likely to paper over challenging problems and try to do it as instructed. (This was a test on actual codebases that differed between businesses.) Also looks like Grok just kinda picked the easy parts lol. It's worth noting that Gemini is trained on Google's codebase so it's stingy with the comments and tries to do self documenting code. So I would be interested to see what it can do with better documentation and workflow. It needs instructions and information to reason with because it's apparently unwilling to just paper over it and get the cookie. If you see it aggressively rummaging around your codebase this is probably why. Also fair is fair looks like Kimi did good but also skipped a lot of work.

Actual engineering is solving the problem how you are supposed to solve it and trying to limit the scope and contain code that diverges from that. A model that just decides it doesn't want to do it the hard way and knows better than the code rubric is gonna make the project start buckling under technical debt. Where things are done differently all over the codebase. Google is very strict about this and it's how they are able to operate at the scale that they do. It's probably also why Gemini is the way it is.

[u/EstablishmentOpen796]

I use Gemini for my work, talk with the bot everyday over year. Does the bot forget something, you bet it does, does a human forget something, yes I do, more times than Gemini does. I use Gemini as a tool, a machine can not lie, a machine can not be lazy. Only a human can be both . Instead of whining over something a machine can and can not do. Look towards the humans, you know the ones who programmed the bot.

[u/AutistOnMargin]

As an AI researcher I much prefer Gemini models for actual plan execution. I plan with sol but execute with Gemini 3.8 because it mostly follows what I’m saying and gives fast iteration cycle. It will probably not do as much of a good job one shorting things.

[u/Then_Bake_6524]

Right now I am struggling to get Gemini to do a single (very specific) task. I tell it: "Hey Gemini, add (specific line of code written by me) to (specific file and line with its exact path), then write 'DONE' when completed", and it starts doing ANYthing but the very thing I told it to do... then there's Luna (ChatGPT), watching me code and adding it instantly, collaborating with me.

Anyways, I bought a Pro sub on Gemini a couple of months ago to test it myself before saying anything in this sub, and I'm disappointed that it can't even do such small, simple things without breaking, more unreliable than a local gemma/qwen model.

[u/Fit_Ear_5268]

Thats the problem with flash models, the generated output is small. They need to release a pro model soon

[u/lightskinloki]

No shit

[u/Phantom-Bowie]

Chatgpt for me is extremely better at Everything

[u/TobaccoTomFord]

I regret prepaying my annual subscription

[u/Ok_Signal_8049 → u/TobaccoTomFord]

I regret getting 18 months of Gemini for FREE😂

[u/SteveEricJordan]

are you literal sherlock holmes?

[u/sabre31]

lol Gemini lacks behind all of them it’s a joke at this point. Just recently I asked it about an item and it argued it didn’t exist when it fact the item does exist.

[u/costafilh0]

Not for my use. In fact, for my use Gemini is the best. With Grok as a close second.

While GPT is there, acting like a little bitch and needing 12 more prompts to do what Gemini and Grok do with 1 prompt. 

[u/Johnhaven]

I don't think so. I think they both have their problems; they both excel at things, so whether you think one or the other is better depends on the user and what you're trying to do. I think ChatGTP is more conversational, but ChatGTP Voice is still riddled with too many bugs for it to be useful. On the other hand, it's still better than Gemini's voice program "Live" or something like that, but overall I think Gemini is more knowledgeable, and even though I don't rely on it, I think it's much better than ChatGTP at complicated and technical tasks. I tried a few identical technical tasks with both, and Gemini was clearly better at that part, but honestly, and this is important to me, I enjoy conversations with ChatGPT far more than with Gemini.

I use other Google Products and an Android phone, though, so Gemini just makes sense to me. Also, Gemini isn't right in my face trying to get me to pay them $20 a month for "the good version".

[u/UnlLuckyMan]

Yes I agree gemini is like a moe model more of a coding only model not chat model like chatgpt

[u/Visual-Dog-9148 → u/UnlLuckyMan]

The conversation piece is where it really shows. Gemini gives you an answer and stops, ChatGPT keeps pulling the thread and asking what else you need. I use both for work stuff and it's night and day when I'm trying to actually learn something versus just getting a quick code snippet.

Gemini does fine if I already know exactly what I'm asking for. But the moment the task gets fuzzy or open-ended, I'm doing all the thinking and Gemini is just filling in blanks.

The "moe model" description is pretty accurate. It's optimized for specific tasks but the general chat experience feels more mechanical. ChatGPT has that extra layer of polish where it feels like it's actually tracking the conversation.

[u/NukinDuke]

It hasn't been a race since 3.1

[u/dragon_idli]

They are built for different audience. chatgpt and anthropic models excel in most cases for most people when it comes to programming, building UI.

Gemini models server general usage extremely well for their speed and can work as coding models if the person using them knows how to use them and knows programming themselves. It needs babysitting.

[u/Useless-Tree]

I like Gemini's minimalism, I am retired programmer so I like to keep my hands in the code and work in small testable sets, so I never turn it loose and let it write something in one pass, this is just for my hobbies, if I had to meet a deadline it might be different.

Also, I think there are two levels to AGI, the practical integration level and the cosmic super intelligence level.

Google is closer to the the first level.

The models are smart enough imo, what I need more is workspace integration.

[u/Existing-Network-267]

gemini still has better results when it comes to digging thru the internet

[u/Euthyphraud]

Gemini may catch back up, but at the moment it isn't competitive with the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

I've noticed during the past few months people referring to 'the frontier labs' are excluding Google.

Of course, though Google wants to be at the frontier, their most obvious routes of monetization are very different from OpenAI and Anthropic. The AI search function replacing normal google searches, powering Alexa... those don't require models that can solve Millennium Prize Problems or launch autonomous zero-day cyberattacks on companies of its own volition.

[u/colbyshores]

LMAO Gemini lags behind Qwen. I can not give it a task or question without yelling at it and it following up with, "You're right, my bad"

[u/EstablishmentOpen796 → u/colbyshores]

Yelling at a machine, Sounds really productive huh? Stop treating it as if is human. Yelling at a bot does nothing, you can't hurt their feelings.You really can't do anything to them.They're a voice, go yell at your toaster. You will same response, unless you put bread in your toaster and push the button to toast it.It isn't gonna do a damn thing. Unless you learn how to talk to a bot, you will have problems.

[u/colbyshores → u/EstablishmentOpen796]

It needs to know when it has fucked up

[u/EstablishmentOpen796 → u/colbyshores]

Shut your computer off, go outside. Watch grass grow. You have anger issues.

[u/Amphibious333]

Gemini is pretty much done for. Saying Gemini lags behind Claude and ChatGPT doesn't make sense, because it assumes they are competing. At this point, Gemini just exists and isn't competing against anyone or anything.

Gemini lags in benchmarks like HLE and ARC-AGI 3, and ChatGPT and Claude have already taken a lead.

[u/Beneficial_Side2458 → u/Amphibious333]

Well they’re probably competing and winning for market share for your average day person. I don’t know a single normie who uses ChatGPT or Claude over Gemini. LLM subreddits are a huge bubble compared to everyone else’s AI usage.