# Gemma 3 4B vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

> Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 28.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 60× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-4b-vs-qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 4B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 37.0 to 11.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 25.2% for Gemma 3 4B and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Gemma 3 4B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 28.1 | 38.1 |
| Rank | 326 | 190 |
| Context | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.04 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 4B: 35.9 (#215)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1230 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 4B: 20.9 (#142)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 19.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 4B: 13.2 (#335)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 25.2% | 49.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1253 | 1372 |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 50.9% | — |
| LMCA | 2.8% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 116.02 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 4B: 16.8 (#292)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1239 | 1365 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 7.5% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 4B: 11.8 (#299)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1223 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 23.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.4% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 4B: 42.5 (#194)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1273 | 1346 |
| LMArena German | 1281 | 1325 |
| LMArena Russian | 1294 | 1366 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1357 |
| LMArena French | — | 1398 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1305 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 4B: 65.2 (#225)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1239 | 1355 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 4B: 38.7 (#194)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1273 | 1378 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 4B: 42.0 (#239)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1291 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1271 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1255 | 1365 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1068 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 4B better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 28.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 60× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Gemma 3 4B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (35.9 vs 35.5); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 4B and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 4B has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.