Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs gpt-oss-20b (High)
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or gpt-oss-20b (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
gpt-oss-20b (High) scores 0.1 points higher (9.0 vs 8.9) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($28.8 vs $14.7; both budget class). Pick gpt-oss-20b (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning).
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 9.0 | +1.1% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 1.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $28.81 | +96.3% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 96.3% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 16.79s | −70.9% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 70.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $0.05 / $0.22 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text |
gpt-oss-20b (High) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 1.1% more intelligence, 96.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 70.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)gpt-oss-20b (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/gpt-oss-20b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/gpt-oss-20b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill