Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Gemma 4 12B IT vs North Mini Code 1.0
Gemma 4 12B IT scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against North Mini Code 1.0'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
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 85
- Risk, 70 against 60
- Documentation and upkeep, 85 against 36
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
Watch for
No safety evaluation figures published
Best for Developers who want a coding agent on their own GPU with a permissive licence
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No limitations, safety results, languages or data description on the card
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.
Documentation and upkeep Gemma 4 12B IT +49
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.
North Mini Code 1.0 36
Model card 11, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters and the context are on the card. Training data 0, the card gives the training method and nothing about the data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 15 June 2026 (outdated chat templates removed), 148 days before this check, and the draft model's repository on 29 July, 104 days. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 June to 6 November 2026) has a reply from a CohereLabs member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, with each build in its own repository. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, and the June commit that removed broken templates says so. 11 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 36.
Reach Gemma 4 12B IT +10
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.
North Mini Code 1.0 85
Memory 25, the smallest build from Cohere is the w4a16 repository, 19.38 GB, and 19.38 GB × 1.2 = 23.3 GB, within 24 GB. Unsloth's GGUF isn't read for this line. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 have the cohere2_moe model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the cohere2moe architecture. Builds 15, Quantised builds from Cohere at two precisions, FP8 and 4-bit weights (w4a16), each in its own repository. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the metadata and on the card, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the model and its builds 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. 25 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 85.
Risk Gemma 4 12B IT +10
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.
North Mini Code 1.0 60
File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in Cohere's verified CohereLabs organisation, which cohere.com links to per our other Cohere listings (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on prompt injection, instruction priority or what the model refuses. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Cohere's trust centre holds a responsible disclosure policy with a bug bounty, as recorded on our Cohere listings (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 60.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Gemma 4 12B IT | North Mini Code 1.0 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 95 | 85 | Gemma 4 12B IT +10 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 70 | 60 | Gemma 4 12B IT +10 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 85 | even |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 85 | 36 | Gemma 4 12B IT +49 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | BB 72.3/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Gemma 4 12B IT | North Mini Code 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Google DeepMind | Cohere |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-20 | 2026-07-29 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | 3.8/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
North Mini Code 1.0
No score change since it was listed.
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.
North Mini Code 1.0
A coding agent model that fits one 24 GB GPU at 4 bits, trained for tool use, with a 256K context, Apache 2.0 and four released runtimes. It's a research release and reads like one: nothing on limitations, safety or data, the card's run instructions are out of date, and Cohere hasn't answered a question on the repository.
Before you call either
Gemma 4 12B IT
- 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--mmprojwith mmproj-gemma-4-12b-it-qat-q4_0.gguf for images and audio - With Ollama run
ollama run gemma4:12band raise num_ctx or OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH, since the default context is small and agents want at least 64K - 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 - 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
- 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
- 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
North Mini Code 1.0
- Serve it with vLLM 0.33.0 or later and
--tool-call-parser cohere_command4 --reasoning-parser cohere_command4 --enable-auto-tool-choice, withcohere_melodyinstalled - Pass the model's thinking back with its tool calls on every turn. The card says results drop without it
- Describe tools in JSON schema and append tool results as a dictionary with the tool role
- Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95
- For llama.cpp the GGUF files are Unsloth's or bartowski's conversions, not Cohere's
- It's text only. Don't send images
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Gemma 4 12B IT or North Mini Code 1.0?
Gemma 4 12B IT scores 72.3 (BB) on agent readiness against North Mini Code 1.0's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/gemma-4-12b-it-vs-north-mini-code-1-0.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/gemma-4-12b-it.json·/api/v1/tools/north-mini-code-1-0.json - From a terminal
anchor compare gemma-4-12b-it north-mini-code-1-0(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "gemma-4-12b-it", "b": "north-mini-code-1-0"}at/mcp, no key