LOADING DATASHEET
GROUNDED IN REAL HUMAN CONVERSATIONSYOUR BENCH
Gemma 4 26B A4B
◆ OPEN
by Google
OPEN WEIGHTSLOCALFREE TO TRYCODING HELPWRITING HELP
RANKED #22 OF 267 ASSISTANTS · OVERALL #36 OF 6,566 · VIBE SCORE 6.9 · 2,170 VOICES
A fast text model for people who need assistance with coding and writing tasks.
HAPPY9.4
288 mentions
SAD5.6
147 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 2,888 voices
QUIETLY DEGRADING
Recent vibe and chatter are both sliding.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download Gemma 4 26B A4B once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
25.2B parameters (MoE, 3.8B active), a Q4 file is about 14 to 17 GB
- BARE MINIMUM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB
16 GB VRAM
~$420 NEWQ4 quant (e.g., Q4_K_M or QAT Q4_0), ~30 tok/s, 8k context
- SWEET SPOT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB
24 GB VRAM
~$700 USEDQ8 or Q5 quant, ~100 tok/s, 32k context
- FULL POWER
Apple Mac Studio M2 Max (64GB)
64 GB UNIFIED MEMORY
~$1700 USEDUnquantized BF16 or Q8, ~35 tok/s, full 128k context
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
WILL MY BOX RUN GEMMA 4 26B A4B?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long Gemma 4 26B A4B takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | SWEET SPOTNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB | FULL POWERApple Mac Studio M2 Max (64GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write an emaila paragraph or two, drafted from a one-line brief | ~17 S★★★★★ | ~5 S★★★★★ | ~14 S★★★★★ |
| Summarize a documenta long report boiled down to the points that matter | ~50 S★★★★★ | ~15 S★★★★★ | ~43 S★★★★★ |
| Build a websitea small landing page, markup and styles together | ~4.4 MIN★★★★★ | ~80 S★★★★★ | ~3.8 MIN★★★★★ |
| Build a backendan API with routes, storage and tests | ~14 MIN★★★★★ | ~4.2 MIN★★★★★ | ~12 MIN★★★★★ |
| Build a gamea playable browser game in one file | ~8.3 MIN★★★★★ | ~2.5 MIN★★★★★ | ~7.1 MIN★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
Users love Gemma 4 26B A4B for its speedy responses and strong help with coding and writing. However, some find it expensive and complain about occasional hallucinations, refusal lectures, and service errors.
1560 POSTS · 610 COMMENTS · REDDIT · BLUESKY · HACKER NEWS · X · GITHUB · LEMMY · DEV FORUMS · DEV.TO · BLOG
PEOPLE LOVE
- Popular for coding help (22 mentions)
- Answers come back fast (13 mentions)
- Good at writing and wording things (5 mentions)
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- Refuses or lectures more than people like (19 mentions)
- Outages, errors, or limits get in the way (12 mentions)
- People find it expensive (8 mentions)
- Sometimes makes things up (5 mentions)
TOPIC BY TOPIC
- Help with codePEOPLE LOVE THIS
22 thumbs up · 2 thumbs down
- SpeedMOSTLY POSITIVE
13 thumbs up · 6 thumbs down
- Saying no too muchA SORE SPOT
0 thumbs up · 19 thumbs down
- PriceMIXED FEELINGS
9 thumbs up · 8 thumbs down
- Working when you need itA SORE SPOT
3 thumbs up · 12 thumbs down
- Getting facts rightMIXED FEELINGS
5 thumbs up · 5 thumbs down
- WritingMOSTLY POSITIVE
5 thumbs up · 4 thumbs down
- Long conversationsA SORE SPOT
1 thumbs up · 3 thumbs down
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Checked picks first: tags say why you would switch, stars say how fully each one stands in for Gemma 4 26B A4B.
Muse Glimmer 30B
Mistral Small> SOURCES (12)
- X · 2026-08-15 · 893 UPVOTESQuick tip: download the open models you care about from Hugging Face as soon as you can. You never know what the next fe
Quick tip: download the open models you care about from Hugging Face as soon as you can. You never know what the next fe
- REDDIT · 2026-04-15 · 836 UPVOTESRunning a 31B model locally made me realize how insane LLM infra actually is
Running a 31B model locally made me realize how insane LLM infra actually is
- REDDIT · 2026-06-05 · 702 UPVOTESGoogle releases new Gemma 4 QAT models!
Google releases new Gemma 4 QAT models!
- REDDIT · 2026-07-15 · 694 UPVOTESGoogle is updating Gemma 4's chat templates, bringing major fixes to tool calling and reducing "laziness", and enabling Flash Attention 4…
Google is updating Gemma 4's chat templates, bringing major fixes to tool calling and reducing "laziness", and enabling Flash Attention 4 on Hopper GPUs, plus an interactive guide on how to work with and improve its vision!
- REDDIT · 2026-07-20 · 631 UPVOTESIntroducing Unsloth for AMD
Introducing Unsloth for AMD
- REDDIT · 2026-06-03 · 610 UPVOTESGemma 4 12B is out now!
Gemma 4 12B is out now!
- REDDIT · 2026-06-01 · 537 UPVOTESLocal AI News You Missed - May 2026
Local AI News You Missed - May 2026
- REDDIT · 2026-04-02 · 531 UPVOTESGoogle releases Gemma 4 models.
Google releases Gemma 4 models.
- REDDIT · 2026-06-11 · 527 UPVOTESGoogle Gemma 4 MTP out now!
Google Gemma 4 MTP out now!
- REDDIT · 2026-06-03 · 472 UPVOTESGoogle just dropped Gemma 4 12B on your laptop!!
Google just dropped Gemma 4 12B on your laptop!!
- REDDIT · 2026-08-10 · 370 UPVOTESMuse Glimmer ACTUALLY fits on a single RTX 3090
Muse Glimmer ACTUALLY fits on a single RTX 3090
- REDDIT · 2026-08-11 · 345 UPVOTES1 Day in and I feel okay saying Muse-Glimmer-30B finally beats 3.6-27B for the size in some use-cases
1 Day in and I feel okay saying Muse-Glimmer-30B finally beats 3.6-27B for the size in some use-cases