Gemma 4 26B A4B vs GPT-5.4

Summary of our 12-test comparison (all scores are from our testing unless noted): - tool calling: Gemma 5 vs GPT-5.4 4 — Gemma wins. Gemma is tied for 1st (tied with 16 others out of 54), while GPT-5.4 ranks 18 of 54 (tied with 28). Practically: Gemma is more reliable at function selection and argument accuracy in workflows. - classification: Gemma 4 vs GPT-5.4 3 — Gemma wins and is tied for 1st (rank 1 of 53), while GPT-5.4 sits lower (rank 31 of 53). For routing and categorical decisions, Gemma shows stronger accuracy in our tests. - constrained rewriting: GPT-5.4 4 vs Gemma 3 — GPT-5.4 wins (rank 6 of 53 vs Gemma rank 31). This matters when compressing or rewriting text under tight character limits. - safety calibration: GPT-5.4 5 vs Gemma 1 — GPT-5.4 wins decisively and is tied for 1st (with 4 others); Gemma ranks 32 of 55. For safety-critical moderation and refusal behavior, GPT-5.4 is substantially better in our testing. - agentic planning: GPT-5.4 5 vs Gemma 4 — GPT-5.4 wins and is tied for 1st; Gemma is rank 16 of 54. GPT-5.4 performs better at goal decomposition and failure recovery. - structured output: tie 5/5 — both tied for 1st (with 24 others). Both models are excellent at JSON/schema compliance. - strategic analysis: tie 5/5 — both tied for 1st. Both handle nuanced tradeoff reasoning equally well in our tests. - creative problem solving: tie 4/4 — both rank 9 of 54. - faithfulness: tie 5/5 — both tied for 1st (with 32 others). - long context: tie 5/5 — both tied for 1st (with 36 others). Note: GPT-5.4’s context window is 1M+ tokens (payload notes ~922K input + 128K output); Gemma offers 262,144 tokens. - persona consistency and multilingual: ties at top ranks for both. External benchmarks (supplementary): GPT-5.4 scores 76.9% on SWE-bench Verified (Epoch AI) — rank 2 of 12 — and 95.3% on AIME 2025 (Epoch AI) — rank 3 of 23. These Epoch AI results reinforce GPT-5.4’s strength on coding and high-level math in third-party measures. Overall: GPT-5.4 wins more individual tests (3 vs 2) and holds the decisive advantage on safety and agentic planning; Gemma’s wins are focused on tool calling and classification and it offers far lower costs and video->text modality.

Per the payload, Gemma 4 26B A4B costs $0.08 per mTok input and $0.35 per mTok output; GPT-5.4 costs $2.50 per mTok input and $15.00 per mTok output. Assuming a 50/50 split of input vs output tokens, monthly costs are: - 1M tokens (1,000 mTok): Gemma ≈ $215 ($40 input + $175 output); GPT-5.4 ≈ $8,750 ($1,250 input + $7,500 output). - 10M tokens (10,000 mTok): Gemma ≈ $2,150; GPT-5.4 ≈ $87,500. - 100M tokens (100,000 mTok): Gemma ≈ $21,500; GPT-5.4 ≈ $875,000. The cost gap matters for volume workloads, SaaS startups, and consumer-facing apps where Gemma can deliver similar core capabilities at ~2.3% of GPT-5.4’s price ratio (priceRatio = 0.02333). Organizations that prioritize safety, agentic planning, or need the 1M+ token context for rare high-value sessions should budget for GPT-5.4; cost-sensitive production uses should evaluate Gemma first.

Choose Gemma 4 26B A4B if: - You need a cost-efficient production model for high-volume apps (see pricing examples) - Your workload emphasizes tool calling, function selection, classification, or multimodal video->text ingestion - You require a large but sub‑million context (262,144 tokens) and top-tier structured-output performance Choose GPT-5.4 if: - Safety calibration and refusal behavior matter (GPT-5.4 scores 5 vs Gemma 1 in our tests) - You need best-in-class agentic planning and constrained rewriting or must leverage a 1M+ token context window (922K input + 128K output per description) - You prioritize third-party-coded/math performance (SWE-bench 76.9% and AIME 95.3% per Epoch AI) despite substantially higher costs.