Gemma 4 12B vs North Mini Code
Pricing, benchmarks, and use case comparison
Quick take
- •Gemma 4 12B is meaningfully stronger at multimodal (78 vs 5 on our capability index).
- •North Mini Code is meaningfully stronger at coding (78 vs 68).
- •Gemma 4 12B is open-weights (free to self-host); North Mini Code is paid API only.
Specs comparison
| Gemma 4 12B | North Mini Code | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | |
| Type | Open source | Closed source |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 256K tokens |
| Input / 1M tokens | ✓Free (self-host) | 0 |
| Output / 1M tokens | Free (self-host) | 0 |
| Release date | 2026-06 | 2026-06 |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | North Mini Code |
|---|---|---|
| Total parameters | ~11.95B | - |
| Context window | 256K tokens | - |
| Artificial Analysis Coding Index | - | 33.4 |
| Throughput vs Devstral Small 2 | - | Up to 2.8x higher output throughput |
Scores sourced from official provider release posts and independent benchmark aggregators.
Which should you choose?
Choose Gemma 4 12B if...
- →You need an open, self-hostable multimodal model
- →Running on a single consumer GPU or a laptop
- →Data-privacy or on-prem requirements
- →You want a permissive license (Apache 2.0) for commercial use
Choose North Mini Code if...
- →You want a self-hostable, sovereign coding agent on modest hardware
- →You run agentic SWE workflows (repo edits, sub-agent orchestration, code review)
- →You need terminal/tool-driven multi-turn agents
- →You want high coding throughput at low compute cost