Gemma 4 E4B vs Z-1

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· Z-1

Quick Verdict

Pick Gemma 4 E4B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Z-1 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 has the cleaner overall profile here, landing at 47 versus 44. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Gemma 4 E4B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 52 against 27.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is BBH, 33.1% to 74%. Z-1 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 Z-1 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.

Operational tradeoffs

ProviderGoogleZ
PriceFree*Pricing unavailable
SpeedN/AN/A
TTFTN/AN/A
Context128K128K

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 E4BZ-1
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.039%
BrowseComp49%
OSWorld-Verified41%
CodingGemma 4 E4B wins
LiveCodeBench52%22%
HumanEval44%
SWE-bench Verified33%
SWE-bench Pro30%
Multimodal & GroundedGemma 4 E4B wins
MMMU-Pro52.6%46%
OfficeQA Pro56%
ReasoningZ-1 wins
BBH33.1%74%
MRCRv225.4%57%
MuSR48%
LongBench v256%
KnowledgeGemma 4 E4B wins
GPQA58.6%
MMLU-Pro69.4%64%
MMLU52%
SuperGPQA49%
HLE6%
FrontierScience51%
SimpleQA50%
Instruction Following
IFEval80%
Multilingual
MGSM74%
MMLU-ProX72%
Mathematics
AIME 202352%
AIME 202454%
AIME 202553%
HMMT Feb 202348%
HMMT Feb 202450%
HMMT Feb 202549%
BRUMO 202551%
MATH-50073%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, Gemma 4 E4B or Z-1?

Gemma 4 E4B is ahead overall, 47 to 44. The biggest single separator in this matchup is BBH, where the scores are 33.1% and 74%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Gemma 4 E4B or Z-1?

Gemma 4 E4B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 65.6 versus 42.1. Inside this category, MMLU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Gemma 4 E4B or Z-1?

Gemma 4 E4B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 52 versus 27.6. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Gemma 4 E4B or Z-1?

Z-1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 54.2 versus 25.4. Inside this category, BBH is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Gemma 4 E4B or Z-1?

Gemma 4 E4B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.6 versus 50.5. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: April 2, 2026

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