GPT-5.6 Terra vs Gemma 4 26B A4B
Head-to-head specifications
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Terra | Gemma 4 26B A4B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Index | 55.0 | 25.0 | +120.0% |
| Coding Index | 76.7 | 39.3 | +95.2% |
| Agentic Index | 47.4 | 11.0 | — |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 400K tokens | — |
| Blended price ($/1M tokens) | $1.14 | $0.13 | +776.9% |
| Output speed (tokens/s) | 138 | 54 | +155.6% |
| Access | Proprietary API | Open weights | — |
- GPT-5.6 Terra leads overall capability (Intelligence Index 55.0 vs 25.0).
- Gemma 4 26B A4B is the cheaper model to run at $0.13/1M blended tokens — about 8.8× cheaper.
- GPT-5.6 Terra offers the larger context window (1M tokens), useful for long documents and codebases.
Verdict: GPT-5.6 Terra or Gemma 4 26B A4B?
GPT-5.6 Terra advantages
- General intelligence (+55%)
- Coding ability (+49%)
- Agentic task performance (+77%)
- Context window (+60%)
- Output speed (+61%)
Gemma 4 26B A4B advantages
- Affordability (+89%)
Which should you choose?
- Choose the GPT-5.6 Terra if you need the strongest overall reasoning and accuracy.
- Choose the Gemma 4 26B A4B if you want the lowest cost per token at scale.
- Choose the GPT-5.6 Terra if coding and software development are your main workload.
Value for money
Gemma 4 26B A4B offers more intelligence per dollar (4.0× the Intelligence-Index-per-cost of the alternative), making it the stronger value for high-volume use. It is also open-weight, so self-hosting can reduce costs further at scale.
GPT-5.6 Terra vs Gemma 4 26B A4B: which should you choose?
GPT-5.6 Terra — OpenAI multimodal model with an Intelligence Index of 55, a 1M-token context window and a blended price of $1.14/1M tokens.
Gemma 4 26B A4B — Google text model with an Intelligence Index of 25, a 400K-token context window and a blended price of $0.13/1M tokens (open weights).
GPT-5.6 Terra vs Gemma 4 26B A4B: GPT-5.6 Terra scores higher on the Intelligence Index. GPT-5.6 Terra leads overall capability (Intelligence Index 55.0 vs 25.0). Gemma 4 26B A4B is the cheaper model to run at $0.13/1M blended tokens — about 8.8× cheaper.
Capability: intelligence, coding and agentic work
On the composite Intelligence Index the GPT-5.6 Terra scores 55.0 versus 25.0. For software development, the Coding Index puts GPT-5.6 Terra ahead (76.7 vs 39.3). On agentic, multi-step tool-use tasks, GPT-5.6 Terra measures stronger. Composite indices summarize many evaluations, but always test on your own workload before committing.
Context window and speed
The GPT-5.6 Terra accepts up to 1 million tokens per request, which sets how much documentation, transcript or code it can reason over at once. In measured throughput, GPT-5.6 Terra generates faster (138 vs 54 tokens/s), which matters for interactive apps and high-volume pipelines.
Pricing and access
At blended per-token rates, Gemma 4 26B A4B is the cheaper model to run ($0.13 vs $1.14 per 1M tokens). GPT-5.6 Terra is proprietary api and Gemma 4 26B A4B is open weights. Open-weight models can be self-hosted, trading per-call cost for infrastructure you manage; for production also weigh rate limits, throughput and data-residency requirements.
The verdict
Both are credible choices in the ai model comparison space; the specification table above lays out every metric so you can weigh the trade-offs that matter to you. Pick the one whose strengths line up with how you will actually use it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the GPT-5.6 Terra better than the Gemma 4 26B A4B?
GPT-5.6 Terra is the clearly stronger overall choice, winning most of the dimensions that matter. GPT-5.6 Terra leads overall capability (Intelligence Index 55.0 vs 25.0).
What is the main difference between the GPT-5.6 Terra and the Gemma 4 26B A4B?
GPT-5.6 Terra leads overall capability (Intelligence Index 55.0 vs 25.0). Gemma 4 26B A4B is the cheaper model to run at $0.13/1M blended tokens — about 8.8× cheaper.
Which is better value?
Gemma 4 26B A4B offers more intelligence per dollar (4.0× the Intelligence-Index-per-cost of the alternative), making it the stronger value for high-volume use. It is also open-weight, so self-hosting can reduce costs further at scale.
Which should I choose?
Choose the GPT-5.6 Terra if you need the strongest overall reasoning and accuracy. Choose the Gemma 4 26B A4B if you want the lowest cost per token at scale.
Methodology
Large language models are compared on independent leaderboard metrics: an Intelligence Index (a composite of reasoning and knowledge evaluations), Coding and Agentic indices where measured, community arena Elo, maximum context window, a blended API price per million tokens (weighted across cache-hit, input and output rates), and measured output speed in tokens per second. Where a model ships multiple reasoning-effort variants, we report its strongest variant. Benchmarks capture only part of real-world quality, which also depends on tool use, latency, safety and task fit — and this space moves quickly, so figures reflect the leaderboard snapshot on the page date.