Gemma 4 E2B vs o3-mini

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Agentic
Coding
Multimodal & Grounded
Reasoning
Knowledge
Instruction Following
Multilingual
Mathematics

Gemma 4 E2B· o3-mini

Quick Verdict

Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 E2B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

o3-mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 65 to 39. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

o3-mini's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 81.1 against 19.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MRCRv2, 19.1% to 80%.

o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Gemma 4 E2B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. o3-mini gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for Gemma 4 E2B.

Operational tradeoffs

ProviderGoogleOpenAI
PriceFree*$1.10 / $4.40
SpeedN/A160 t/s
TTFTN/A7.12s
Context128K200K

Decision framing

BenchLM keeps the benchmark table and the operator tradeoffs on the same page so a better score does not hide a materially slower, pricier, or smaller-context model.

Runtime metrics show N/A when BenchLM does not have a sourced snapshot for that exact model. The scoring rules and freshness policy are documented on the methodology page.

BenchmarkGemma 4 E2Bo3-mini
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.067%
BrowseComp74%
OSWorld-Verified61%
Codingo3-mini wins
LiveCodeBench44%
SWE-bench Verified49.3%
SWE-bench Pro57%
Multimodal & Groundedo3-mini wins
MMMU-Pro44.2%73%
OfficeQA Pro76%
Reasoningo3-mini wins
BBH21.9%
MRCRv219.1%80%
LongBench v282%
Knowledgeo3-mini wins
GPQA43.4%77.2%
MMLU-Pro60%
MMLU86.9%
FrontierScience66%
Instruction Following
IFEval93.9%
Multilingual
MMLU-ProX73%
Mathematics
AIME 202487.3%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Gemma 4 E2B or o3-mini?

o3-mini is ahead overall, 65 to 39. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MRCRv2, where the scores are 19.1% and 80%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemma 4 E2B or o3-mini?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 70.5 versus 54.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 4 E2B or o3-mini?

o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 54.1 versus 44. Gemma 4 E2B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemma 4 E2B or o3-mini?

o3-mini has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 81.1 versus 19.1. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemma 4 E2B or o3-mini?

o3-mini has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.4 versus 44.2. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: April 2, 2026

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