The closest alternative to Gemma 4 26B A4B is R1 0528 — comparable intelligence (27.1 vs 27.1); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.060/M; for more speed, Mercury 2 hits 456 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
R1 0528 is the closest alternative to Gemma 4 26B A4B , with an Intelligence Index of 27.1 (Gemma 4 26B A4B scores 27.1) at $0.500 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.060 for Gemma 4 26B A4B , while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Gemma 4 26B A4B — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.