Gemma 3 12B alternatives
Match · Updated July 2026
The closest alternative to Gemma 3 12B is Gemini 3.6 Flash — comparable intelligence (50.1 vs —); for a cheaper option, gpt-oss-120b runs $0.037/M vs $0.050/M; and the best open-weight substitute is Kimi K3.
Closest match
Cheaper alternatives
gpt-oss-120b
$0.037/M input · 23.8 intel
gpt-5-nano:batch
$0.025/M input · 19.9 intel
north-mini-code:free
Free/M input · 19.8 intel
nemotron-3-nano-omni-30b-a3b-reasoning:free
Free/M input · 14.9 intel
gpt-oss-20b
$0.030/M input · 14.9 intel
gpt-oss-20b:free
Free/M input · 14.9 intel
Open-source alternatives
kimi-k3
57.1 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
glm-5.2
51.1 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
minimax-m3
44.4 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
minimax-m3:batch
44.4 intel · open weights · 524K ctx
deepseek-v4-pro
44.3 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
kimi-k2.6
44.2 intel · open weights · 262K ctx
Frequently asked
What is the best alternative to Gemma 3 12B?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the closest alternative to Gemma 3 12B, with an Intelligence Index of 50.1 (Gemma 3 12B scores —) at $1.50 per million input tokens.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Gemma 3 12B?
Yes — gpt-oss-120b costs $0.037 per million input tokens versus $0.050 for Gemma 3 12B, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
Is there an open-source alternative to Gemma 3 12B?
Kimi K3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Gemma 3 12B — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 57.1 on intelligence.