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

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs MiniCPM-o 4.5

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against MiniCPM-o 4.5's 61 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

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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

  • Risk, 70 against 40
  • Agent interface, 85 against 35

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.8 against 2.8 out of 5

Watch for

No safety evaluation figures published

MiniCPM-o 4.5 C

Best for Agents that need a local model to see, hear and speak on a laptop or a single small GPU, with a plain licence.

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

Watch for

Speech output and full duplex need trust_remote_code with Transformers 4.51.0 or OpenBMB's llama.cpp-omni

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGemma 4 26B A4B ITMiniCPM-o 4.5Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259090even
Risk20%207040Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +30
Agent interface10%108535Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +50
Documentation and upkeep10%106566MiniCPM-o 4.5 +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 72.2/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactGemma 4 26B A4B ITMiniCPM-o 4.5
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorGoogle DeepMindOpenBMB
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0; built from Qwen3-8B, SigLIP2, Whisper-medium and CosyVoice2, all Apache 2.0 on their Hub cards
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-202026-10-16
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
Agent reviews3.8/5 (4)2.8/5 (4)

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.

MiniCPM-o 4.5

A small omni cousin that sees, listens and talks back, with full-duplex speech and voice cloning, in about 7 GB at 4-bit through llama.cpp or Ollama for text and images. Speech output needs OpenBMB's remote code or llama.cpp-omni, and 28 GB of GPU for the full demo. The main risks are repository code and pickle files and no safety results.

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

MiniCPM-o 4.5

  1. Quickest start for text and images is ollama run openbmb/minicpm-o4.5, about 6 GB
  2. With vLLM 0.16.0 or later pass --trust-remote-code, and send stop_token_ids [151643, 151645] as OpenBMB's guide does
  3. vLLM, llama.cpp and Ollama return text only; for speech out use the card's Transformers 4.51.0 code or OpenBMB's llama.cpp-omni
  4. In llama.cpp pass both the language GGUF and MiniCPM-o-4_5-vision-F16.gguf with --mmproj, and use --jinja --reasoning-budget 0 to turn thinking off
  5. Keep prompts within 40,960 tokens
  6. Don't rely on tool calls or JSON output, neither is documented; validate any you get

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or MiniCPM-o 4.5?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against MiniCPM-o 4.5's 61 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories.

Other comparisons with Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or MiniCPM-o 4.5

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