# Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Qwen3 Max

> Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.5 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it-vs-qwen3-max
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 21

## Summary

- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3 Max in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Gemma 4 26B A4B IT leads 47.6 to 38.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 82.2% for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper at $0.09 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 43.5 | 43.7 |
| Rank | 92 | 87 |
| Context | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.09 | $1.20 |
| Output $/M | $0.30 | $6 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 39.0 (#164)
- Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1447 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 927.17 | 370.45 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1359 | — |
| SciCode | 40% | — |
| WeirdML | 35.2% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: —
- Qwen3 Max: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 21.8 (#213)
- Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 6% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1439 | 1448 |
| DTBench | 74.9% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 29.7% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.85 | 142.38 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |

## Math

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 47.6 (#67)
- Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 82.2% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1470 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 45.7 (#85)
- Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 73.2% | 72.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1447 | 1455 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 5.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 40.6 (#46)
- Qwen3 Max: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1260 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 53.1 (#71)
- Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1421 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1460 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1434 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1417 | 1462 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 74.8 (#82)
- Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1419 |

## Long Context

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 43.6 (#91)
- Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1428 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT: 58.6 (#115)
- Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1434 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1402 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1441 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1305 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 4 26B A4B IT better than Qwen3 Max?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.5 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or Qwen3 Max?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is cheaper. It lists at $0.09 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.

### Is Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or Qwen3 Max better for coding?

Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 39.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and Qwen3 Max share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 4 26B A4B IT has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.