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

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs North Mini Code 1.0

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (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

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 85
  • Risk, 70 against 60
  • Documentation and upkeep, 65 against 36

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

No safety evaluation figures published

North Mini Code 1.0 C

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 26B A4B IT +29

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 65

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 10, the files last changed on 20 July 2026, 104 days before 1 November, still inside 180 days. Responsiveness 10, Google replied to 16 of the 35 questions and reports, and to 1 of the 9 since 23 July, with its newest reply on 1 October. 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 chat-template bug reports (discussions 32 and 48) still wait 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 Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 15 June 2026 (outdated chat templates removed), 148 days before this check, and the draft model's repository on 29 July, 104 days.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.

Risk Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +10

Gemma 4 26B A4B 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 policy give a route to report a flaw, but no public Gemma advisories were found and GitHub's advisory tab couldn't be checked.

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.

Reach Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +5

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 90

Memory 25, Google's own 4-bit QAT GGUF is 14.4 GB, which with a fifth on top is 17.3 GB and lands in the 24 GB band, with the 1.2 GB vision projector extra for images. Runtimes 25, released support in vLLM, Transformers, llama.cpp, Ollama, SGLang and LM Studio, six of six. Builds 10, Google publishes one quantised precision (Q4_0 GGUF), since its unquantised QAT repository is BF16 and there's no FP8 build. Terms 15, plain Apache 2.0 with nothing added. Download 10, no account or gate. Hosted 5, the Gemini API serves it and four inference providers are live on Hugging Face.

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.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGemma 4 26B A4B ITNorth Mini Code 1.0Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259085Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +5
Risk20%207060Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +10
Agent interface10%108585even
Documentation and upkeep10%106536Gemma 4 26B A4B IT +29
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 72.2/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactGemma 4 26B A4B ITNorth Mini Code 1.0
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorGoogle DeepMindCohere
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-202026-07-29
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
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.

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 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

North Mini Code 1.0

  1. Serve it with vLLM 0.33.0 or later and --tool-call-parser cohere_command4 --reasoning-parser cohere_command4 --enable-auto-tool-choice, with cohere_melody installed
  2. Pass the model's thinking back with its tool calls on every turn. The card says results drop without it
  3. Describe tools in JSON schema and append tool results as a dictionary with the tool role
  4. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95
  5. For llama.cpp the GGUF files are Unsloth's or bartowski's conversions, not Cohere's
  6. It's text only. Don't send images

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or North Mini Code 1.0?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against North Mini Code 1.0's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.

Other comparisons with Gemma 4 26B A4B IT or North Mini Code 1.0

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