Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Gemma 4 26B A4B IT
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 56× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 28 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 28 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 21.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 66.1% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 35.2% for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper at $0.0675 / $0.23 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 43.5 |
| Released | 2026-02-17 | 2026-04-02 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $3 | $0.0675 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $15 | $0.23 |
| Results tracked | 57 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 39.0 (#164)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | 1359 |
| SciCode | 46.8% | 40% |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | 35.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1504 | 1447 |
| ALE-Bench | 1,327 | 927.17 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2% | — |
| DeepSWE | 29.9% | — |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | — |
| APEX-Agents | 43% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | — |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | — |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 48.8% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1221 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,204 | — |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 21.8 (#213)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 3.1% | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | 6% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1484 | 1439 |
| DTBench | 89.9% | 74.9% |
| LMCA | 46.5% | 29.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.24 | 141.85 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 86.5% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 76.3% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 16% | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 47.6 (#67)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 85.8% | 82.2% |
| LMArena Math | 1462 | 1470 |
| ProofBench | 45% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 45.7 (#85)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | 73.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.6% | 5.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1500 | 1447 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | — |
Multimodal Gemma 4 26B A4B IT leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 40.6 (#46)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | 1260 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 53.1 (#71)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | 1421 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1491 | 1495 |
| LMArena French | 1465 | 1460 |
| LMArena Russian | 1440 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | 1417 |
| LMArena German | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 74.8 (#82)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1475 | 1420 |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 43.6 (#91)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | 1428 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 58.6 (#115)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | 1434 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | 1402 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1810 | 1305 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1464 | 1441 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Gemma 4 26B A4B IT?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 43.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs 56× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemma 4 26B A4B IT?
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper. It lists at $0.0675 per million input tokens and $0.23 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Gemma 4 26B A4B IT better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 39.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT share?
28 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has 28.