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LLM Index

Gemma vs. Llama

A side-by-side comparison of release history, capabilities, licensing and model sizes.

Attribute Gemma Llama
Developer Google Meta
Current generation Gemma 4 Llama 4
Initial release 2024-02-21 2023-02-24
Instruct tuned Yes Yes
Coding Yes Yes
Finetuning Yes Yes
Open source Yes Yes
License Apache 2.0 Llama Community License
Model sizes E2B, E4B, 12B, 26B (3.8B active), 31B 109B (17B active), 400B (17B active)
Links
Website
Website

Gemma

Gemma is Google's family of efficient open models for local, edge, and self-hosted deployment. Gemma 4 is the current generation, spanning mobile-scale through workstation-scale models.

Google introduced Gemma in February 2024 as a family of lightweight open models built from the same research used for Gemini. Gemma 2 improved efficiency and model quality, while Gemma 3 added multimodal input and longer context. Gemma 4, released in April 2026 under Apache 2.0, adds advanced reasoning, agentic tool use, code generation, image and video understanding, and models ranging from edge-focused E2B and E4B variants to 12B, 26B mixture-of-experts, and 31B dense checkpoints.

Further reading

Llama

Llama is Meta's open-weight model family. Llama 4 was its last major generation; Meta's active assistant-model development has shifted to Muse.

Meta introduced LLaMA in February 2023, helping catalyze the modern open-weight model ecosystem. Llama 2 added commercial use and chat tuning, while the Llama 3 series improved scale, multilingual support, and instruction following. Llama 4, released in April 2025, introduced native multimodality and a mixture-of-experts architecture. Meta subsequently shifted its actively promoted assistant-model line to the proprietary Muse family, but Llama models remain widely used and deployed.

Further reading

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