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

Gemma 4 12B IT vs MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

Gemma 4 12B IT scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. 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

Gemma 4 12B IT BB

Best for Agents on a 12 GB or larger GPU or Mac that want a permissively licensed tool-calling model with images, audio and long context

Ahead on

  • Reach, 95 against 65
  • Risk, 70 against 45
  • Documentation and upkeep, 85 against 59

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

No safety evaluation figures published

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL C

Best for Teams with a GPU server, or a provider account, that want an open agent model with a very long context

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

Watch for

178 GB at 4 bits, so it needs about 200 GB of memory

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.

Reach Gemma 4 12B IT +30

Gemma 4 12B IT 95

Memory 30, Google's own 4-bit QAT GGUF with its projector is 7.15 GB, which with a fifth on top is 8.6 GB and fits in 16 GB or less. Runtimes 25, released support in Transformers, vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp, Ollama and LM Studio, six of six, all for the separate gemma4_unified architecture. Builds 15, Google publishes a Q4_0 GGUF and a w4a16 build, read as two kinds as for the 31B. Terms 15, plain Apache 2.0 with nothing added. Download 10, no account or gate. Hosted 0, the Gemini API serves only the two largest sizes and no inference provider lists this one.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 65

Memory 5, the smallest build at 4 bits or better is ggml-org's MXFP4 GGUF, 168.93 GB with its projector, and 168.93 GB × 1.2 = 202.7 GB, within 256 GB. Xiaomi's own files are 177.74 GB. ggml-org's Q2_K is below 4 bits and isn't read. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0 and SGLang 0.5.23 have the mimo_v2 model and the mimo parsers, Transformers 5.22.2 has a mimo_v2_flash model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture, with a GGUF from its own organisation. Builds 10, one precision from Xiaomi, the 4-bit files it releases. Terms 15, MIT in the card's metadata, an OSI licence. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, the card says it is on Xiaomi's MiMo Open Platform API and on OpenRouter, and Novita is live for it on Hugging Face. 5 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 65.

Documentation and upkeep Gemma 4 12B IT +26

Gemma 4 12B IT 85

Model card 20, all seven items are there. Training data 10, a general description by type with a January 2025 cut-off and the filtering, but no sources, mix or sizes. Last change 20, Google merged a fix for 210 glitch tokens in tokenizer.json on 30 October 2026, two days before 1 November. Responsiveness 20, Google replied to 18 of 34 questions and reports, the last on 2026-07-31, re-counted on 1 November. Version policy 10, earlier Gemma generations keep their own repositories and gemma.ai has a dated releases page. File health 5, the files agree with the card but a report about them waits without a reply.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 59

Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters, the context and the languages (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 5, A description of the training method with no data sources, sizes or cut-off. Last change 20, the last commits, on 28 October 2026, updated the card, 13 days before this check. Responsiveness 5, Of the 13 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (21 September to 6 November 2026), 3 have a reply from a XiaomiMiMo member, which is a few. Version policy 5, MiMo-V2.5 stays in its own repositories and V2.6 came out in new ones, with no dated note on the older cards that we read. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the 1M context, and two early faults (invalid JSON in the draft model's config, preprocessor values) were fixed in commits that say so. 14 + 5 + 20 + 5 + 5 + 10 = 59.

Risk Gemma 4 12B IT +25

Gemma 4 12B IT 70

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, with nothing from the repository run on load. Provenance 15, the files sit in Google's own organisation and every file has a checksum. Safety evaluation 0, the card says testing showed minimal policy violations but gives no figures. Agent guidance 10, the card names the harm categories its safety training covers and asks for content-safety safeguards, and the tool guide says to validate calls, with no prompt-injection guidance. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no added policy, no threshold and a working link. Security programme 5, Google's security.txt and reward programme give a route to report a flaw, but no public Gemma advisories were found.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 45

File safety 5, the weights are safetensors, but the dflash folder's mask_embedding.pt is a pickle beside them (15). Provenance 15, the files sit in the XiaomiMiMo organisation, which mimo.xiaomi.com links to per the Distill listing (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions only. Licence risk 15, MIT has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Xiaomi runs a company security centre for reporting flaws, as read for the Distill listing (5). 5 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 45.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGemma 4 12B ITMiMo-V2.6-Flash-RLEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259565Gemma 4 12B IT +30
Risk20%207045Gemma 4 12B IT +25
Agent interface10%108585even
Documentation and upkeep10%108559Gemma 4 12B IT +26
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 72.3/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactGemma 4 12B ITMiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorGoogle DeepMindXiaomi (MiMo team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT (metadata only, no LICENSE file)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-07-202026-10-28
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews3.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Gemma 4 12B IT

A mid-size cousin for agent work with tools, optional thinking and image and audio input, under Apache 2.0. Google's 4-bit build needs under 9 GB with working space, so it runs on a 12 GB GPU or any recent Mac in all the common runtimes. The main risks are no published safety results and no documented JSON output.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

A large agent model with an open licence: text, images, video and audio, a 1M context, tool calling it was trained for, and code in four released runtimes. It's a server model, 178 GB at 4 bits, and the card's commands run the repository's code. No safety results, little said about data, and few questions answered.

Before you call either

Gemma 4 12B IT

  1. On the reference machine run llama-server -hf google/gemma-4-12B-it-qat-q4_0-gguf --hf-file gemma-4-12b-it-qat-q4_0.gguf --jinja -c 131072, and add --mmproj with mmproj-gemma-4-12b-it-qat-q4_0.gguf for images and audio
  2. With Ollama run ollama run gemma4:12b and raise num_ctx or OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH, since the default context is small and agents want at least 64K
  3. In vLLM or SGLang pass --tool-call-parser gemma4 --reasoning-parser gemma4 (vLLM also --enable-auto-tool-choice), or tool calls come back as text; Google's w4a16 build is the 4-bit route there
  4. Thinking is off by default; pass enable_thinking=True or start the system prompt with <|think|>, and drop earlier turns' thinking from history except on tool-call turns
  5. Put images before the text and audio after it, keep audio to 30 seconds and video to 60 frames, and validate tool names and arguments before running them
  6. Transformers needs 5.10.0 or later for gemma4_unified, and mlx-lm has no gemma4_unified code, so on a Mac use mlx-vlm, LM Studio or Ollama

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

  1. Plan for a provider unless you have a multi-GPU server: Xiaomi's API platform, OpenRouter or Novita
  2. On SGLang or vLLM pass --tool-call-parser mimo --reasoning-parser mimo
  3. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95, as the card recommends
  4. The card's commands pass trust-remote-code. Read the repository's three Python files first, or use Transformers 5.22.2, which has the model built in
  5. Skip the dflash folder unless you need speculative decoding. Its mask_embedding.pt is a pickle
  6. The Use Restrictions section asks for human oversight of high-risk actions

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Gemma 4 12B IT or MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL?

Gemma 4 12B IT scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.

Other comparisons with Gemma 4 12B IT or MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

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