# Gemma 4 12B vs ZAYA1-8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemma 4 12B and ZAYA1-8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-zaya1-8b
- Last updated: September 4, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick ZAYA1-8B 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

- ZAYA1-8B leads overall 58 to 46.64.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 89.8 for Gemma 4 12B and 35.6 for ZAYA1-8B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is AIME26 in Mathematics, with scores of 77.5% and 89.1%.
- Gemma 4 12B also has the larger context window at 256K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | Zyphra |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 131K |
| Overall Score | 46.64 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 11 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 47.9 (Estimated · #81/151)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 48.1 (Estimated · #79/151)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BFCL v4 | Coming soon | 39.2% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 46.6 (Estimated · #97/183)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 72.0% | 65.8% | Gemma 4 12B |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 26.1 (#44/48)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 79.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 34 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BBH | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MRCRv2 | 43.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 40.4 (Supported · #138/181)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 45.3 (Estimated · #116/181)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 78.8% | 71% | Gemma 4 12B |
| GPQA-D | 78.8% | 71.0% | Gemma 4 12B |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.2% | 74.2% | Gemma 4 12B |
| HLE w/o tools | 5.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMMLU | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 89.8 (#21/120)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 35.6 (#108/120)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |
| IFBench | Coming soon | 52.6% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 57.6 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 62.6 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 77.5% | 89.1% | ZAYA1-8B |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 71.6% | Coming soon |
| IMOAnswerBench | Coming soon | 59.3% | Coming soon |
| Apex | Coming soon | 32.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemma 4 12B or ZAYA1-8B?

ZAYA1-8B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemma 4 12B and ZAYA1-8B?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 89.8 for Gemma 4 12B and 35.6 for ZAYA1-8B.

### 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 ZAYA1-8B cover on BenchLM?

ZAYA1-8B currently has 11 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-31b)
- [ZAYA1-8B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-31b-vs-zaya1-8b)
- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-26b-a4b)
- [ZAYA1-8B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-vs-zaya1-8b)

## Explore More

- [Gemma 4 12B profile](/models/gemma-4-12b)
- [ZAYA1-8B profile](/models/zaya1-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)