Gemma 4 26B A4B vs Grok 4.20

Across our 12-test suite, the models are overwhelmingly tied. Per our testing: structured output 5/5 (tied; Gemma tied for 1st with 24 others; Grok tied for 1st), tool calling 5/5 (tied; both tied for 1st), faithfulness 5/5 (tied; both tied for 1st), long context 5/5 (tied; both tied for 1st), multilingual 5/5 (tied), persona consistency 5/5 (tied), strategic analysis 5/5 (tied), creative problem solving 4/5 (tied), classification 4/5 (tied), agentic planning 4/5 (tied), safety calibration 1/5 (tied, rank 32 of 55). The one decisive difference: constrained rewriting — Gemma scores 3 vs Grok 4, giving Grok that single win (Grok ranks 6 of 53 here vs Gemma rank 31 of 53). Practical meaning: for JSON-schema and format adherence both score 5/5 and sit at the top of our ranking, so neither gives you an advantage on structured outputs. Both models score 5/5 on long context, so retrieval and reasoning over 30K+ tokens are strong in our tests, though Grok’s raw context_window is larger (2,000,000 vs Gemma 262,144). Safety calibration is low for both (1/5), meaning both models are conservative weaknesses on refusal/permit discrimination in our safety tests. The constrained rewriting gap (4 vs 3) indicates Grok is measurably better at tight-character compression tasks in our testing.

Gemma 4 26B A4B input/output rates: $0.08/$0.35 per mTok. Grok 4.20 input/output rates: $2/$6 per mTok. Using those per-mTok rates and assuming 1M input + 1M output tokens per month (1,000 mToks each): Gemma = $0.081000 + $0.351000 = $80 + $350 = $430/month. Grok = $21000 + $61000 = $2,000 + $6,000 = $8,000/month. Scale to 10M in+10M out: Gemma $4,300 vs Grok $80,000. Scale to 100M in+100M out: Gemma $43,000 vs Grok $800,000. Who should care: any product with millions of tokens/month (chat apps, indexing, large-scale summarization) — Gemma’s cost savings are material. Grok’s higher price could be justified only if its single win (constrained rewriting) or its 2,000,000-token context (for specific workflows) delivers unique value to you.

Choose Gemma 4 26B A4B if: you need near-top performance on structured output, long-context retrieval, multilingual output and faithfulness at a very low price per mTok (input $0.08, output $0.35) — ideal for high-volume production, multimodal ingestion (text+image+video->text), and cost-sensitive apps. Choose Grok 4.20 if: you specifically need better constrained rewriting (4 vs 3 in our tests), require the extreme 2,000,000-token context window, or you value any product-level features in xai’s offering that justify its higher cost (input $2, output $6). If budget matters, Gemma is the practical winner; if a tight-character compression task or gigantic single-context session is critical, prefer Grok.