ModelRefs / o4 Mini vs Gemma 3 27B
o4 Mini vs Gemma 3 27B
o4 Mini vs Gemma 3 27B: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
Gemma 3 27B: Gemma 3 27B is the largest model in Google's third-generation open Gemma family, accepting text and images across a 128,000-token input context, with output drawn from the same budget. Images are normalised to 896x896 and encoded as 256 tokens each. Google cites support for more than 140 languages and an August 2024 knowledge cutoff. The weights are published under Google's Gemma Terms of Use rather than a standard open-source licence.
o4 Mini: o4 Mini is OpenAI's efficient reasoning model, adding vision support to the mini reasoning tier for agentic tasks needing both image understanding and step-by-step logic at low cost per task. It is now deprecated: OpenAI gives the o4-mini-2025-04-16 snapshot and the o4-mini alias a shutdown date of 23 October 2026, with gpt-5.6-terra as the substitute.
Context window: Gemma 3 27B accepts up to 128,000 tokens, o4 Mini up to 200,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
Gemma 3 27B vs o4 Mini at a glance
| Attribute | Gemma 3 27B | o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | |
| Released | 2025-02-01 | 2025-04-16 |
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 200,000 tokens |
| Input price | $0.1/M tokens | $1.1/M tokens |
| Output price | $0.3/M tokens | $4.4/M tokens |
| Licence | Gemma-Terms | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | Yes, open weights | No, hosted only |
| Modalities | text, vision | text, vision |
Where they differ most
- Cost Efficiency: Gemma 3 27B 95%, o4 Mini 63%. Gemma 3 27B leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: Gemma 3 27B 68%, o4 Mini 79%. o4 Mini leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to o4 Mini vs Gemma 3 27B.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, o4 Mini or Gemma 3 27B?
o4 Mini and Gemma 3 27B target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is o4 Mini cheaper than Gemma 3 27B?
Compare $0.00110 vs $0.00010 on this page.