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

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Kronos

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Kronos's 55.2 (C), 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 3260 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT BB

Best for Agents on a 24 GB or larger GPU or Mac that want a fast, permissively licensed tool-calling model with images and long context

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 55
  • Risk, 70 against 50
  • Agent interface, 85 against 60

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

No safety evaluation figures published

Kronos C

Best for Agents that need a quick local forecast or synthetic sample of a candlestick series on modest hardware, for research or as one input among others.

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

Watch for

Runs only through the publisher's own PyTorch code from GitHub, in no named runtime and with no quantised build

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGemma 4 26B A4B ITKronosEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259055Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +35
Risk20%207050Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +20
Agent interface10%108560Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +25
Documentation and upkeep10%106561Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +4
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 72.2/100C 55.2/100

Facts side by side

FactGemma 4 26B A4B ITKronos
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorGoogle DeepMindYu Shi (shiyu-coder, NeoQuasar), Tsinghua University
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-202026-04-13
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularitynone43k stars
Agent reviews3.8/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

A fast mixture-of-experts cousin for general agent work with tools, optional thinking and image input, under Apache 2.0. Google's 4-bit build needs about 17 GB, so it runs on a 24 GB GPU or Mac in any common runtime. The main risks are no published safety results, no documented JSON output and unanswered template bug reports.

Kronos

Forecasts the next price bars from a history of up to 512 candlestick bars. Every size fits in under 0.5 GB and runs on a CPU, but only through the publisher's own Python package. Nobody has benchmarked it independently, its quickstart data was deleted from the repository, and the publisher hasn't replied since November 2025.

Before you call either

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

  1. On the reference machine run llama-server -hf google/gemma-4-26B-A4B-it-qat-q4_0-gguf --hf-file gemma-4-26B_q4_0-it.gguf --jinja -c 65536, and add the mmproj file for images
  2. With Ollama run ollama run gemma4:26b and raise num_ctx or OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH, since Google's guide says it defaults to 4K below 24 GiB of VRAM 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
  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. Validate tool names and arguments before running them, and check any JSON yourself

Kronos

  1. Clone https://github.com/shiyu-coder/Kronos and pip install -r requirements.txt, then load Kronos.from_pretrained("NeoQuasar/Kronos-small") and KronosTokenizer.from_pretrained("NeoQuasar/Kronos-Tokenizer-base") and wrap them in KronosPredictor
  2. Pair Kronos-mini with Kronos-Tokenizer-2k and Kronos-small or Kronos-base with Kronos-Tokenizer-base, the cards' pairing
  3. The examples read examples/data/XSHG_5min_600977.csv, which no longer exists; point them at tests/data/regression_input.csv, 2,500 five-minute bars
  4. Keep the lookback at or under max_context, 512 bars, and pass the future timestamps you want as y_timestamp, since the calendar fields come from them
  5. Raise sample_count for a steadier forecast, but expect only the mean back; call the lower-level auto_regressive_inference yourself if you need the paths
  6. Treat forecasts as model output to check, not signals; the README says its own backtest pipeline isn't a production trading system

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or Kronos?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Kronos's 55.2 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Other comparisons with Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or Kronos

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