The closest alternative to Gemma 3 4B is Llama 3.2 1B Instruct — comparable intelligence (6.3 vs 6.3); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.050/M; for more speed, Mercury 2 hits 456 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct is the closest alternative to Gemma 3 4B, with an Intelligence Index of 6.3 (Gemma 3 4B scores 6.3) at $0.027 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.050 for Gemma 3 4B, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Gemma 3 4B — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.