Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) vs Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-11-07.
| Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) | Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | ||
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Benchmark Score | 48.4 | 44.7 |
| Input Price | Free | $0.50/M |
| Output Price | Free | $3.00/M |
| Context Window | 262,144 | 1,048,576 |
| Max Output | 32,768 | 65,536 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | - | ✓ |
| Benchmark Scores | ||
| ai_index | 42.4 | 45.2 |
| ai_index_agentic | 18.1 | - |
| ai_index_coding | 64.9 | - |
| eqbench | 56.3 | - |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) costs $0 and Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $1.25, so Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) is free for the same work.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview reads up to 1,048,576 tokens at once, roughly 1,573 pages of text, against about 393 pages for Gemma 4 26B A4B (free).
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview offers audio input.
On our blended benchmark score Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) leads 48.4 to 44.7.
Across the 20 tasks where they differ, Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) scores higher on 19 (SQL Generation, Code Review, Code Refactoring and others), Gemini 3 Flash Preview on 1 (Code Completion).
Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) was released in April 2026 and Gemini 3 Flash Preview in December 2025.
Pick Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) if you need lower cost, benchmark performance or the stronger all-round task scores; pick Gemini 3 Flash Preview if you need long documents or audio input.
Costs use current list prices per million tokens; page counts assume about 0.75 words per token and 500 words per page.
Who wins by task?
| Task | Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) | Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 153 | 139 |
| Code Review | 150 | 140 |
| Code Completion | 131 | 132 |
| Code Refactoring | 148 | 143 |
| Bug Fixing | 156 | 144 |
| Unit Test Generation | 140 | 129 |
| Code Documentation | 136 | 135 |
| Regex Writing | 130 | 123 |
| CI/CD Pipelines | 133 | 125 |
| Frontend Component Design | 136 | 127 |
| Data Analysis | 148 | 130 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 143 | 135 |
| ETL Scripting | 141 | 134 |
| JSON Extraction | 142 | 131 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 133 | 128 |
| OCR / Document Parsing | 138 | 133 |
| Table Extraction from PDFs | 138 | 133 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 147 | 144 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 129 | 125 |
| Blog Post Writing | 132 | 127 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →