Head to head · LLM inference · October 2026 research run
Gemini 4 Carbon vs Beam 1.0
Gemini 4 Carbon scores 62.6 (B) on agent readiness against Beam 1.0's 53.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Beam 1.0 leads on reliability. Both do llm inference.
Best model APIs and inference for AI agents · All 1000 models comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents on the hardest long tasks (multi-step debugging, large codebases, open-ended research, security work) that can pay frontier prices and already use the Gemini API.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 93 against 67
- Security & auth, 55 against 45
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 50
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 57
Watch for
Paid tier only, with no free tier to try it on
Beam 1.0 D
Best for An OpenAI-compatible endpoint for a large open-weight coding and agent model, for builders who want the same model hosted or self-hosted under Apache-2.0.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 52 against 40
Watch for
No SLA, and per-organisation rate limits and the daily token allowance are not published as numbers
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.
Maintenance & community Gemini 4 Carbon +33
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.
Beam 1.0 50
Model reading. The weights were published on 16 October 2026, the date on the Hugging Face model page (the repository was created on 7 October); later commits to 30 October add evaluation results and a guide, which record no model change (30). One model, with a shutdown_date field and a lifecycle section in the docs but no notice period for retirements, and no history of releases or retirements yet (4 of 20). No changelog. Support through the platform and developers@reflection.ai for higher limits, and the model card names reports@reflection.ai. The Hub page shows 15 discussions (10 open, 5 closed), replies not sampled (6 of 25). No first-party SDK, the docs rely on the OpenAI SDKs (5 of 15). Reflection's serving guides for vLLM, SGLang, TokenSpeed, Transformers and Dynamo, a Beam Verifier repository, and fine-tuning recipes now published for NeMo AutoModel, Megatron Bridge, Axolotl and TRL (5 of 10, partial kept). 30 + 4 + 6 + 5 + 5 = 50.
Agent ergonomics Gemini 4 Carbon +26
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.
Beam 1.0 67
Model reading (tool use, structured output, caching, context, batch, SDKs and defaults, errors). tool_choice of auto, none, required or a named function, parallel_tool_calls, strict tools and up to 128 tools. The tool-calling loop needs reasoning_content sent back on every assistant turn, and the docs say the model sometimes returns a tool-call step without it, after which every request in the session fails (12 of 20). json_object and strict json_schema (15). Cached prompt tokens are reported in usage, but caching can't be steered, the prompt_cache_* options are ignored and no cached price exists in the beta (5 of 10). 1,048,576-token context and 131,072 output tokens (15). No batch endpoint (0 of 10). No Reflection SDK, the OpenAI Python and TypeScript SDKs are documented, and defaults cost an agent turns, with reasoning always on at max, stop and seed ignored and a default output budget not reduced to fit the prompt (5 of 10). Machine-readable error.code values with param, x-should-retry, Retry-After and x-request-id (15). 12 + 15 + 5 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 = 67, per the 17 October reading of the developers guides, not re-read on 4 November beyond the models and rate-limits pages.
Transparency & trust Gemini 4 Carbon +15
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.
Beam 1.0 57
Weights under Apache-2.0, an OSI licence, per the model card, which says the licence doesn't restrict distillation or training on outputs. The hosted API is a closed service whose commercial terms are on reflection.ai and can no longer be read (25 of 30, kept). Data handling 10 of 30, partial kept. What remains readable is the API reference's retention header (zero, standard, contributor) and the rate-limits page's request for data retention requirements; the terms, privacy policy, API safety page and zero-retention page are struck. Deprecation 4 of 20 (was 6). A shutdown_date field and a lifecycle section that says to move off a model before that date, with no notice period or dated notice; the fee-increase notice came from the struck terms. Subprocessors 0 of 20 (was 18). The list read on 17 October is on reflection.ai and struck, and no readable page names subprocessors or data locations. 25 + 10 + 4 + 0 = 39.
Reliability Beam 1.0 +12
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.
Beam 1.0 52
Hosted lines, for the Reflection API. Status page at status.reflection.ai on incident.io, with API, platform and developer docs components and Atom and RSS feeds (20). In the 90 days to 4 November 2026 its incident pages list two full outages of the API component, a serving cluster down from 22:01 to 23:20 UTC on 14 October and elevated errors from 06:10 to 07:10 UTC on 15 October, each an hour or more, so two majors. Three more are labelled partial outages (16 October 02:28 to 02:38 UTC, 22 October rate-limit errors in two windows, 3 November about 20:10 to 21:38 UTC on one inference provider), read as minor. Two majors give 5. Rate limits are described per organisation in requests and tokens per minute and per day, with concurrency caps and headers, but no figures are published (5 of 15). 429 and 503 responses carry Retry-After, daily limits add x-should-retry: false, and the errors page says which codes to retry, with exponential backoff and jitter. There are no idempotency keys, and a chat completion is the billed call, so this run's value for retry guidance without idempotency keys gives 12 (was 15). No SLA found (0). The developers docs read on 4 November carry no beta or preview label for the API; the earlier beta reading came from reflection.ai pages now struck (10). 20 + 5 + 5 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 52.
Security & auth Gemini 4 Carbon +10
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.
Beam 1.0 45
Model reading. API keys per project, revocable, shown once and disabled when their creator leaves, with no scopes, expiry or rotation API found (20 of 30). Training 10 of 20, partial kept. The API reference says each response's reflection-data-retention header reports contributor when content may be used to train Reflection's models "under contributor terms your organization accepted". The API safety page and commercial terms read on 17 October are struck (reflection.ai now disallows our crawler), so whether training is off by default can't be read. Retention 5 of 15, partial kept. The header can report zero, standard or contributor, and no readable page states periods or whether zero retention is offered. x-request-id on every response and the retention header, with usage dashboards behind the login and not read (5 of 15). Security programme 5 of 20 (was 6). The model card names reports@reflection.ai for security vulnerabilities; developers.reflection.ai has no security.txt (404 on 17 October), and the safety report and reflection.ai's security.txt can't be read. No bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 found on a readable page. 20 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 45.
Payments & pricing Gemini 4 Carbon +10
Gemini 4 Carbon 20
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. No machine payment protocol (0). Introductory prices published in Google's 28 October announcement without a login, $2 and $10, then $4 and $20; the Gemini API pricing page as read on 10 November showed no Carbon row, so the figures rest on the announcement (20). No free tier: Google's developer post puts Carbon on the paid tier (0). A Google account and AI Studio for a key (0). 0 + 20 + 0 + 0 = 20.
Beam 1.0 10
Graded on the Reflection API. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). No per-token, plan or allocation price is published on any readable page; the beta pricing page on reflection.ai is struck (0, was 10). Free tier 10 of 20, partial kept. The rate-limits page describes a daily token allowance and asks those requesting higher limits whether they are "interested in paid usage", and the authentication page says some organisations must verify a credit card before keys work. A person signs up in the browser at platform.reflection.ai to get a key (0). 0 + 0 + 10 + 0 = 10.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Gemini 4 Carbon | Beam 1.0 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 52 | Beam 1.0 +12 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 85 | 84 | Gemini 4 Carbon +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 93 | 67 | Gemini 4 Carbon +26 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 55 | 45 | Gemini 4 Carbon +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 10 | Gemini 4 Carbon +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 83 | 50 | Gemini 4 Carbon +33 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 72 | 57 | Gemini 4 Carbon +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | B 62.6/100 | D 53.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Gemini 4 Carbon | Beam 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Reflection | |
| Hosted endpoint | https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta | https://api.reflection.ai/openai/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed model, used through the Gemini API and Google's apps under Google's terms | Weights under Apache-2.0. The hosted Reflection API is a closed service under Reflection's commercial terms of service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-10 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-04-28 | 2026-10-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-08-28 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (4) |
How the scores have moved
Gemini 4 Carbon
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Gemini 4 Carbon
Google's strongest model on the same Gemini API as Argon, with a 1M-token budget, function calling and structured output, at an introductory $2 and $10 per million tokens. Paid tier only, sampling parameters are ignored or refused, its launch stage isn't stated, and the price rises to $4 and $20 at a date Google hasn't given.
Beam 1.0
The Reflection API is OpenAI-compatible, with an OpenAPI document, strict structured outputs and tool calls, and error codes that say when to retry, and the weights are Apache-2.0. No price or rate-limit figure is published on a readable page, reasoning can't be turned off, and the API had two full outages on 14 and 15 October 2026.
Before you call either
Gemini 4 Carbon
- Call generateContent at https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta with model gemini-4-carbon and an x-goog-api-key on a billed project
- Set thinking_level (LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH) instead of thinking_budget, and don't send temperature, top_p or top_k
- Count output against the same 1,048,576-token limit as the input, and set max_output_tokens for long answers
- Put static prompt content first so implicit caching applies; explicit caches aren't supported
- Use gemini-4-argon for most coding and knowledge work, and Carbon for the hardest long tasks, as Google suggests
Beam 1.0
- Send
reasoning_effortlowormediumfor short tasks. The default ismax, andnoneorminimalreturn400 unsupported_value - Return every assistant message with its
reasoning_contentunchanged. If a turn comes back without it, start a new conversation, since later requests fail withmissing_required_parameter - Don't rely on
stoporseed. Both are accepted and ignored, so truncate output in your own code - Honour
x-should-retry: falseon a 429. It means a daily limit is spent andRetry-Aftercounts to 00:00 UTC - Set
max_completion_tokensyourself on long prompts. The default budget isn't reduced to fit the prompt and includes reasoning tokens
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Gemini 4 Carbon or Beam 1.0?
Gemini 4 Carbon scores 62.6 (B) on agent readiness against Beam 1.0's 53.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Beam 1.0 leads on reliability.
Do Gemini 4 Carbon and Beam 1.0 need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Gemini 4 Carbon and Beam 1.0 without installing anything?
Yes. Gemini 4 Carbon has a hosted endpoint at https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta and Beam 1.0 at https://api.reflection.ai/openai/v1.
Other comparisons with Gemini 4 Carbon or Beam 1.0
- Amazon Bedrock vs Gemini 4 Carbon
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- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Muse Ember
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- Gemini 4 Carbon vs RouterPlus
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- Gemini 4 Carbon vs SiliconFlow
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- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Together AI Inference
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Gemini 4 Carbon vs xAI API (Grok)
- Gemini Developer API vs Beam 1.0
- GroqCloud vs Beam 1.0
- Hugging Face Inference Providers vs Beam 1.0
- Inkling 2 Small vs Beam 1.0
- Jais 3 vs Beam 1.0
- Meta Model API vs Beam 1.0
- MiniMax API vs Beam 1.0
- Mistral AI API vs Beam 1.0
- Muse Ember vs Beam 1.0
- Muse Spark Open vs Beam 1.0
- Novita AI vs Beam 1.0
- OpenAI API vs Beam 1.0
- OpenRouter vs Beam 1.0
- Prism Inference vs Beam 1.0
- Router.com (Ramp Router) vs Beam 1.0
- Beam 1.0 vs RouterPlus
- Beam 1.0 vs SambaCloud
- Beam 1.0 vs SiliconFlow
- Beam 1.0 vs Simplismart
- Beam 1.0 vs StepFun API
- Beam 1.0 vs SWE-2 Flash
- Beam 1.0 vs Tencent Cloud TokenHub
- Beam 1.0 vs Together AI Inference
- Beam 1.0 vs Vercel AI Gateway
- Beam 1.0 vs Vertex AI (Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform)
- Beam 1.0 vs xAI API (Grok)
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL vs Beam 1.0
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/gemini-4-carbon-vs-reflection-beam.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/gemini-4-carbon.json·/api/v1/tools/reflection-beam.json - From a terminal
anchor compare gemini-4-carbon reflection-beam(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "gemini-4-carbon", "b": "reflection-beam"}at/mcp, no key