# Gemma 4 12B vs Ternary Bonsai 2 27B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemma 4 12B and Ternary Bonsai 2 27B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-ternary-bonsai-2-27b
- Last updated: September 18, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Ternary Bonsai 2 27B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B leads overall 50.78 to 42.99.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 33.7 for Gemma 4 12B and 73.9 for Ternary Bonsai 2 27B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is AIME26 in Mathematics, with scores of 77.5% and 95.8%.
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B also has the larger context window at 262K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | Prism ML |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 262K |
| Overall Score | 42.99 | 50.78 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 21 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 45.3 (Estimated · #87/154)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 49.9 (Estimated · #59/154)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ²-bench results | Coming soon | 80.2% | Coming soon |
| BFCL v3 | Coming soon | 74.9% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 44.4 (Estimated · #97/154)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 49.9 (Estimated · #64/154)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 72.0% | 90.1% | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B |
| BigCodeBench | Coming soon | 58.1% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 60.8% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 52.8% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 26.2 (#44/48)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 79.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv (overall) | Coming soon | 80.0% | Coming soon |
| A-OKVQA | Coming soon | 86.8% | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench 1.6 | Coming soon | 89.1% | Coming soon |
| RealWorldQA | Coming soon | 80.1% | Coming soon |
| OCRBench V2 | Coming soon | 56.9% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 33.7 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 73.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BBH | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MRCRv2 | 43.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 39.1 (Supported · #143/184)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 50.6 (Estimated · #78/184)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 78.8% | 85.8% | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B |
| GPQA-D | 78.8% | 85.8% | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 5.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMLU | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Redux | Coming soon | 89.1% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 88.7 (#22/124)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 71 (#64/124)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | Coming soon | 91.3% | Coming soon |
| IFBench | Coming soon | 74% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 53 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Ternary Bonsai 2 27B public-lane score: 76.8 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 77.5% | 95.8% | Ternary Bonsai 2 27B |
| GSM8K | Coming soon | 96.7% | Coming soon |
| MATH-500 | Coming soon | 98.8% | Coming soon |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 95% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemma 4 12B or Ternary Bonsai 2 27B?

Ternary Bonsai 2 27B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemma 4 12B and Ternary Bonsai 2 27B?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 33.7 for Gemma 4 12B and 73.9 for Ternary Bonsai 2 27B.

### How many benchmarks does Gemma 4 12B cover on BenchLM?

Gemma 4 12B currently has 12 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Ternary Bonsai 2 27B cover on BenchLM?

Ternary Bonsai 2 27B currently has 21 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-26b-a4b)
- [Ternary Bonsai 2 27B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-vs-ternary-bonsai-2-27b)
- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-31b)
- [Ternary Bonsai 2 27B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-31b-vs-ternary-bonsai-2-27b)

## Explore More

- [Gemma 4 12B profile](/models/gemma-4-12b)
- [Ternary Bonsai 2 27B profile](/models/ternary-bonsai-2-27b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)