Gemma 4 E4B vs Phi-4

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 E4B· Phi-4

Quick Verdict

Pick Gemma 4 E4B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Phi-4 only becomes the better choice if reasoning is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Gemma 4 E4B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 47 to 40. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Gemma 4 E4B's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 65.6 against 53.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MRCRv2, 25.4% to 33%. Phi-4 does hit back in reasoning, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Gemma 4 E4B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Phi-4 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Gemma 4 E4B gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 16K for Phi-4.

Operational tradeoffs

PriceFree*Free*
SpeedN/A35 t/s
TTFTN/A2.02s
Context128K16K

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 E4BPhi-4
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.044%
BrowseComp35%
OSWorld-Verified34%
CodingPhi-4 wins
LiveCodeBench52%
HumanEval82.6%
SWE-bench Pro55%
Multimodal & GroundedGemma 4 E4B wins
MMMU-Pro52.6%54%
OfficeQA Pro38%
ReasoningPhi-4 wins
BBH33.1%
MRCRv225.4%33%
LongBench v230%
KnowledgeGemma 4 E4B wins
GPQA58.6%56.1%
MMLU-Pro69.4%
MMLU84.8%
FrontierScience52%
Instruction Following
Coming soon
Multilingual
MGSM80.6%
MMLU-ProX60%
Mathematics
MATH-50094.6%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Gemma 4 E4B or Phi-4?

Gemma 4 E4B is ahead overall, 47 to 40. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MRCRv2, where the scores are 25.4% and 33%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemma 4 E4B or Phi-4?

Gemma 4 E4B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.6 versus 53.6. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 4 E4B or Phi-4?

Phi-4 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 55 versus 52. Gemma 4 E4B stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemma 4 E4B or Phi-4?

Phi-4 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 31.4 versus 25.4. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemma 4 E4B or Phi-4?

Gemma 4 E4B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.6 versus 46.8. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: April 2, 2026

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