Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT vs SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT D

Best for Agents with about 64 GB of GPU memory that want fast single-user generation from text and images and can accept lower quality than Gemma 4

Ahead on

  • Reach, 55 against 40
  • Risk, 70 against 50
  • Agent interface, 70 against 60
  • Documentation and upkeep, 60 against 44

Watch for

No quantised build from Google, so the smallest official build needs the 64 GB band

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview D

Best for Researchers who want to study or fine-tune a looped transformer, more than agents that need a model to call today

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No released runtime runs it. vLLM and SGLang need unmerged pull requests

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Risk DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +20

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT 70

File safety gets the full 25, safetensors only and loaded by Transformers' own code and a Jinja template. Provenance gets 15 for files in Google's organisation with a hash for every file. Licence risk keeps 15 under plain Apache 2.0. Agent guidance gets 10 for the card's list of harm categories and its advice to add content-safety safeguards. Safety evaluation scores 0 because the card states improvements without figures. The security programme gets 5 for Google's security.txt, with no public advisories for Gemma.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 50

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the sensenova organisation, which the GitHub repository for the model links to (10), and the Hub gives a SHA-256 for the large files (5). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on instructions inside tool results or images. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no use policy, no threshold and no right to change the terms. Security programme 5, SenseTime's about page gives a security contact (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 50.

Documentation and upkeep DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +16

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT 60

The card covers all seven points (20), and the training data is a general description with a January 2025 cut-off (10). The files last changed on 15 July 2026, 112 days before this check (10). Google organisation members answered 10 of the 20 discussions (10). It's a first release (5). File health gets 5 because the diffusers scheduler config disagrees with the card's sampling settings, though the files on the documented path agree.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 44

Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameter counts, the training context and the languages (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 5, one general sentence on the recipes, with no sources, sizes or cut-off. Last change 20, the last commit, on 2 November 2026, reworked the speculative decoding section of the card, 8 days before this check. Responsiveness 0, none of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (30 October to 9 November 2026) has a reply from a sensenova member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, labelled a preview, with dated news on the card. File health 0, the files contradict the card on precision. 14 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 44.

Reach DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +15

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT 55

Memory earns 15 because the only Google build is 51.7 GB of BF16, about 62 GB with the fifth added, which needs the 64 GB band. Runtimes get 15 for Transformers from 5.11.0, SGLang from v0.5.22 and vLLM, whose releases from v0.24.0 (tag commit 28 June 2026) to v0.33.0 register DiffusionGemmaForBlockDiffusion; llama.cpp (b12114, and Ollama through its pin b11963) and LM Studio don't run it. Builds score 0 because Google publishes no quantised build, though others have published FP8, NVFP4, GGUF and 4-bit copies. Apache 2.0 with nothing added gives terms the full 15 and the ungated repository gives download the full 10. Hosted too scores 0, since no inference provider is mapped and the Gemini API doesn't serve it.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 40

Memory 15, the only build is the safetensors set, 38.14 GB with its MTP head, since the Hub counts 9.41B of its parameters in F32. Runtimes 0, none of the six runs it in a released version. Builds 0, SenseNova publishes one set of weights and no quantised build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and on the card, which links the LICENSE in the GitHub repository, and nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API that serves it. 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 40.

Agent interface DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +10

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT 70

The chat template is in the repository (20) and handles several tool calls in one turn, and the card names function calling as trained (20). The tool-calling format gets 10, since only the template and the shipped response schema say how tools work here and Google's tool-calling guide is for Gemma 4. Structured output scores 0, undocumented and rejected by SGLang. Thinking can be turned on or off per request with the reasoning in its own channel (10), and the context is 256K (10).

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (7,756 characters). Tool-calling format 10, only the template says it: a tools block, and calls written as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Trained tool calling 10, the card says the training recipes include tool trajectories and that the model is for agentic workflows. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, the card documents enable_thinking in the chat template call, on or off per request, and the template puts the reasoning in think tags ahead of the answer. Context 10, 262,144 tokens in training, per the card's specification table, and config.json gives the language model 262,144 positions. 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 60.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDiffusionGemma 26B A4B ITSenseNova-Loop-9B-PreviewEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%255540DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +15
Risk20%207050DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +20
Agent interface10%107060DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +10
Documentation and upkeep10%106044DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT +16
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 51.3/100D 46.8/100

Facts side by side

FactDiffusionGemma 26B A4B ITSenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorGoogle DeepMindSenseTime (SenseNova)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-07-152026-11-02
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT

A text diffusion model for fast low-concurrency local generation from text, images and video, with optional thinking and Gemma 4's tool format, under Apache 2.0. Google's BF16 files need about 62 GB, and it runs in Transformers, SGLang and vLLM. Google's own figures put it below Gemma 4 26B A4B, and Google labels it experimental.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

An unusual architecture under Apache 2.0, with a 256K training context, a thinking switch and tool calling in the template. It's a preview in practice too: no released runtime runs it, loading it runs the repository's code, the files are twice the size the card implies, and nobody from SenseNova has answered a question yet.

Before you call either

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT

  1. Serve it with sglang serve --model-path google/diffusiongemma-26B-A4B-it --dllm-algorithm Gemma4Renoise --trust-remote-code on SGLang v0.5.22 or later, then call /v1/chat/completions
  2. In Transformers, install transformers>=5.11.0 and load DiffusionGemmaForBlockDiffusion with dtype="auto"; generation_config.json already holds the recommended sampler
  3. Turn thinking on with enable_thinking=True in apply_chat_template or <|think|> at the start of the system prompt, read the reasoning between <|channel>thought and <channel|>, and drop it from history before the next turn
  4. Don't rely on temperature, top_p, logit_bias or JSON Schema in SGLang, which ignores or rejects them for this model; validate JSON yourself
  5. Streaming arrives one 256-token canvas at a time, not token by token
  6. Put images before text in the prompt, and pick an image token budget of 70 to 1,120 by how much detail the task needs

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

  1. Read modeling_sensenova_loop.py before you load it. trust_remote_code runs it
  2. Pin transformers 5.18.0, the version the card checked
  3. Load with dtype=torch.bfloat16 as the card does, or the 38 GB of F32 weights stay at full size
  4. Pass enable_thinking=False to apply_chat_template for a direct answer
  5. Tool calls come back as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Parse them yourself, since no runtime ships a parser
  6. Wait for the vLLM or SGLang pull request to land in a release before putting it behind an API

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview?

DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in every scored category.

Other comparisons with DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

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