Gemini 4 Carbon vs Prism Inference

Gemini 4 Carbon 83

Model reading for gemini-4-carbon on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Released to developers on 10 November 2026, with the platform's changelog (30). Deprecations with earliest dates and no stated minimum notice (4 of 12). Shutdowns in the last 90 days kept to their table (4 of 8). Dated changelog (15). SDK replies not sampled (5 of 10). Current SDKs (15). Runtimes stated (10). 30 + 4 + 4 + 15 + 5 + 15 + 10 = 83.

Prism Inference 49

Model reading. Gemma 4 31B was added to the catalogue on 6 October 2026, 29 days before this check, and nothing newer is dated in the changelog or on the blog, whose newest post is of 9 September (30). No notice period is stated. The terms promise advance notice of a material breaking change 'when reasonably practicable', and no model has been retired (3 of 12). No model shutdowns since launch (8 of 8). A dated changelog with one entry, a Discord server and a support booking link, none of which we tested for replies (8 of 15). No SDK repository to sample. The Hermes provider plugin on GitHub still has three commits, all on 15 September 2026 (0 of 10). No official SDKs (0 of 15) and no packages to assess (0 of 10). 30+3+8+8+0 = 49.

Gemini 4 Carbon 40

Model reading for gemini-4-carbon on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Status page at aistudio.google.com/status with no readable components or history (10 of 20) and no readable incident record (5 of 30). Rate-limit tiers and spend limits published, per-model limits in AI Studio (5 of 15). Backoff guidance for 429 and 503 and SDK retries (15). No SLA (0). Carbon's launch stage isn't stated in Google's developer post, the Antigravity post or the Cloud developer guide read on 10 November, and the model ID carries no preview label, so half (5 of 10, a judgement call; Argon's GA earned the platform 10). 10 + 5 + 5 + 15 + 0 + 5 = 40.

Prism Inference 65

Hosted reading. Status page at status.prisminference.com on incident.io with a component for each of the two models, per the 8 October check (20). The 8 October incident reading came only from the page's /api/v2 incidents feed, a data endpoint this run doesn't use, so it is struck. On 4 November the status host's robots.txt answered a plain 404 (no rules), and the status page itself shows both models at 100 per cent uptime from 5 August to 3 November with "No incidents", data available only from 6 October 2026. The page has never posted an incident, and its record covers 29 days of the 90, so the short-record value applies, as for excaliclaw and serpkite (15). The rate-limits page says per-key limits exist and publishes no numbers, and a 4 MiB request cap was documented on 8 October (5). 429 carries Retry-After in seconds, errors carry a retryable flag, and the docs give bounded exponential backoff with jitter and rules for retrying interrupted streams (15). No published SLA. The terms of 9 September 2026 say the services have no guaranteed uptime or service credit without a separate written agreement, although the home page still shows a '99.99% Uptime SLA' tile (0). The serverless API isn't labelled beta or preview, though the OpenAPI file is at version 0.1.0 (10). 20+15+5+15+0+10 = 65.

Gemini 4 Carbon 93

Model reading for gemini-4-carbon on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Function calling, with forced calls by FunctionCallingConfig on the API (20). Structured output (13 of 15). Implicit caching with durable caching on by default, cached input 95% off, explicit caches not supported, per the Cloud guide read on 10 November (15). 1,048,576 tokens shared between input and output (15). Batch at half price on the platform (10). Python and JavaScript SDKs (10). Error codes with backoff guidance (10 of 15). 20 + 13 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 93.

Prism Inference 68

Model reading of the checklist (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs, errors). OpenAI function tools, Anthropic tool-use blocks, tool_choice and parallel_tool_calls on Responses are documented (18 of 20). JSON mode and strict JSON Schema on Chat Completions, and text.format on Responses (15). A cache-read price is published for both models, $0.03 against $0.09 input on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 4 November, but no page explains how caching is triggered, and the Claude Code guide says prompt-cache hints are accepted and ignored (5 of 15). 1M-token context and 384,000 output tokens on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, 32,768 on Gemma 4 31B (15). Batch appears on the pricing page as a sales-led tier with no API in the OpenAPI file (0). No SDK of its own. OpenAI and Anthropic clients are used with a base URL change (0). The errors page (8 October) and the rate-limits page (4 November) document code, retryable, fix and docs_url on every error (15). 18+15+5+15+0+0+15 = 68.

Gemini 4 Carbon 55

Model reading for gemini-4-carbon on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Keys bound to a service account and restricted to the Gemini API, with no scopes and a token accepted in the URL (15 of 30, the platform's deduction). Carbon is on the paid tier only, and Google's terms say paid-tier content isn't used to improve products; AI Studio use under a Google AI Ultra subscription falls under terms we didn't read, so 15 of 20 (a judgement call; the platform's 10 is for its free tier). Abuse retention with no number, and new paid projects store requests by default since 26 October (5 of 15). Request logs for billed projects (15). security.txt and a reward programme, no certification naming the API (5 of 20). 15 + 15 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 55.

Prism Inference 68

Model reading. Bearer keys, also accepted in x-api-key, issued by the workspace owner from the dashboard, with 401 for revoked or expired keys. No scopes or per-key limits were found in the reviewed documentation (20 of 30). The privacy policy, the terms, the docs and the security policy all say inputs and outputs are never used to train, fine-tune or evaluate models (20). Zero data retention is the default on every tier with no setting to turn on (15). The docs mention usage in the dashboard, which we did not see, and no audit log was found (5 of 15). security.txt is valid until 6 October 2027 with a contact address, and a security policy dated 13 October 2026 asks for vulnerability reports by email to the founders' address. No bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 was found. robotomail, with a valid security.txt and reports by email and nothing more, holds 7 (8 of 20). 20+20+15+5+8 = 68.

Gemini 4 Carbon 72

Model reading for gemini-4-carbon on the Gemini API. Platform facts are the Gemini API listing's (gemini-api, re-read 1 November), carried over as RULES.md allows for a model on an already graded platform. Closed service with clear terms, SDKs Apache-2.0 (15). Paid-tier data isn't used, abuse retention has no number, and request storage is on by default for new paid projects (20 of 30). Deprecations table (15 of 20). Data may be cached anywhere Google has facilities; no subprocessor list checked (5 of 20). Every benchmark figure is Google's own. 15 + 20 + 15 + 5 = 55.

Prism Inference 63

Closed service with clear terms that name Prism Technologies Inc (15). The privacy policy, the terms and the zero-retention page agree on what is and isn't kept. Service metadata is kept 'only for as long as reasonably needed' with no period, and no DPA is published (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices, only the terms' advance notice 'when reasonably practicable' (3 of 20). The privacy policy says Prism is based in the United States and names vendors by category only, with no sub-processor list or regions (5 of 20). 15+20+3+5 = 43.