Compare / Gemma 4 12B vs Phi-4
Gemma 4 12B vs Phi-4
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Gemma 4 12B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 56.9 vs 44.7, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 2 benchmarks both labs report, Gemma 4 12B wins 2 and Phi-4 wins 0. Gemma 4 12B is smaller: it needs about 8.9 GB of memory at 4-bit, against 11.4 GB for Phi-4. Only Phi-4 has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.070 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick Gemma 4 12B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you have limited memory (about 8.9 GB at 4-bit)
- you work with long documents
- you need image input
- you want the more widely used model (more quantized builds and community support)
Pick Phi-4 if…
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
Specifications
| Gemma 4 12B | Phi-4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 56.9 (likely 53–61) | 44.7 (likely 35–55) |
| Lab | Google · United States | Microsoft (Phi) · United States |
| Released | 2026-06-03 | 2024-12-12 |
| Parameters | 11.9B (dense) | 14.7B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~8.9 GB | ~11.4 GB |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 16K tokens |
| Input | text, image, audio | text |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | No thinking |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| API price / 1M tokens | Self-host only | $0.070 ($0.056 in, $0.11 out) |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 1.8M | 327K |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 77.2 | 70.4 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 78.8 | 56.1 |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | 5.2 | ≈ 5 |
| AIME Math | 77.5 | ≈ 61 |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 72.0 | ≈ 50 |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | 69.0 | — |
| MMMU-Pro Vision | 69.1 | — |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, Gemma 4 12B or Phi-4?
Gemma 4 12B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 56.9 vs 44.7, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 2 benchmarks both labs report, Gemma 4 12B wins 2 and Phi-4 wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Phi-4 has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.070 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Gemma 4 12B is smaller: it needs about 8.9 GB of memory at 4-bit, against 11.4 GB for Phi-4.
Which has the longer context window?
Gemma 4 12B has the longer context window: 256K tokens against 16K.
Can I use Gemma 4 12B and Phi-4 commercially?
Gemma 4 12B is released under Apache-2.0 and Phi-4 under MIT. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.