Gemma 4 vs Llama 4 vs Mistral Small 4: The 2026 Open-Source LLM Picks

Three heavyweights dropped this year: Gemma 4 (Google), Llama 4 (Meta), Mistral Small 4 (Mistral). All free to run. All structurally different. Here's which one fits which job. Short answer: long context → Llama 4 Scout. License-clean commercial use → Mistral Small 4. On-device → Gemma 4 E2B / E4B. Quick Take Gemma 4 (31B / 26B MoE) Llama 4 Scout Mistral Small 4 Architecture Dense (31B) · MoE (26B/A4B) MoE (17B active / 109B) MoE (~22B active / 119B) Context E2B/E4B 128K ·...