Gemma 4 31B vs Grok 3 Mini

Gemma 4 31B wins 5 of 12 benchmarks, ties 6, and loses 1. Grok 3 Mini wins 1, ties 6, and loses 5. Here is the test-by-test breakdown:

Agentic Planning (5 vs 3): This is the widest gap in the comparison. Gemma 4 31B ties for 1st with 14 other models out of 54 tested. Grok 3 Mini ranks 42nd of 54 — in the bottom quarter of the field. For any workflow involving multi-step task execution, tool orchestration, or goal decomposition, this gap is operationally significant.

Strategic Analysis (5 vs 3): Gemma 4 31B ties for 1st with 25 other models out of 54. Grok 3 Mini ranks 36th of 54 with only 8 models sharing that score. Grok 3 Mini's description positions it as a logic-focused model, but structured strategic reasoning is not where it excels in our testing.

Creative Problem Solving (4 vs 3): Gemma 4 31B ranks 9th of 54 (21 models share its score). Grok 3 Mini ranks 30th of 54. The gap here is meaningful for tasks requiring non-obvious, feasible ideas — brainstorming, product ideation, or novel approaches to ambiguous problems.

Multilingual (5 vs 4): Gemma 4 31B ties for 1st with 34 other models out of 55. Grok 3 Mini ranks 36th of 55. If your users operate in non-English languages, Gemma 4 31B is the safer choice.

Structured Output (5 vs 4): Gemma 4 31B ties for 1st with 24 others out of 54. Grok 3 Mini ranks 26th. JSON schema compliance and format adherence are non-negotiable in most API integrations — Gemma 4 31B holds an edge here.

Long Context (4 vs 5): Grok 3 Mini's only outright win. It ties for 1st with 36 other models out of 55 on retrieval accuracy at 30K+ tokens, while Gemma 4 31B ranks 38th of 55. Counterintuitively, Gemma 4 31B has a larger context window (262K vs 131K), so the performance gap at long context is a genuine finding worth noting, not an artifact of window size.

Ties (6 benchmarks): Tool calling (5 vs 5, both tied for 1st with 16 others out of 54), faithfulness (5 vs 5, both tied for 1st with 32 others out of 55), persona consistency (5 vs 5, both tied for 1st with 36 others out of 53), classification (4 vs 4, both tied for 1st with 29 others out of 53), constrained rewriting (4 vs 4, both rank 6th of 53 with 24 others), and safety calibration (2 vs 2, both rank 12th of 55). Safety calibration is below the field median (p50 = 2 for both) — neither model stands out positively here.

Gemma 4 31B costs $0.13/MTok on input and $0.38/MTok on output. Grok 3 Mini costs $0.30/MTok on input and $0.50/MTok on output. At 1M output tokens/month, Gemma 4 31B costs $0.38 vs Grok 3 Mini's $0.50 — a $0.12 difference you probably won't notice. Scale to 10M output tokens and the gap is $1.20 vs $5.00 ($3.80 savings). At 100M output tokens — realistic for production pipelines, agent loops, or document processing — Gemma 4 31B runs $38,000 vs Grok 3 Mini's $50,000, a $12,000/month difference. Input costs compound similarly: 100M input tokens costs $13 vs $30. For high-volume API consumers, the cost case for Gemma 4 31B is straightforward. For low-volume users, the difference is negligible and benchmark performance should drive the decision — which also favors Gemma 4 31B.

Choose Gemma 4 31B if you are building agentic systems, multi-step pipelines, or workflows requiring reliable tool orchestration — it scores 5 vs 3 on agentic planning in our testing and sits in the top tier of the field for that benchmark. Also choose Gemma 4 31B for multilingual applications (5 vs 4), strategic analysis tasks like competitive research or tradeoff reasoning (5 vs 3), structured output generation (5 vs 4), and any cost-sensitive deployment at scale ($0.38 vs $0.50/MTok output). Its multimodal input support (text, image, video) and 262K context window add further headroom.

Choose Grok 3 Mini if long-context retrieval accuracy is your primary bottleneck — it scores 5 vs Gemma 4 31B's 4 on that benchmark and ties for 1st in the field. Its accessible reasoning traces (uses_reasoning_tokens quirk) may also appeal to developers who need interpretable chain-of-thought for debugging or compliance. At lower usage volumes where the pricing gap is small, Grok 3 Mini remains a capable option for tool calling and persona-consistent chatbot use cases — both models tie at 5/5 on those.