Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Qwen3.5 Flash
Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 73 to 68 and 57 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
GoogleGemma 4 26B A4B IT
68/100- ECI142.0
- Price$0.112 / $0.40
- Context262K
AnthropicClaude Haiku 4.5
57/100- ECI142.2
- Price$1.00 / $5.00
- Context200K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 Flash
73/100- ECI143.6
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1M
Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick
Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 73/100 against Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (68) and Claude Haiku 4.5 (57). It leads on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3.5 FlashCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 143.6 · Claude Haiku 4.5 142.2 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 142.0
- Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT $0.184 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 262,144 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 tokens
- Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5 FlashGemma 4 26B A4B IT: Text, Images · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingGemma 4 26B A4B ITPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Qwen3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 67 | 67 | 69 |
| Price | 25% | 81 | 34 | 82 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 70 | 80 | 80 |
| Context window | 10% | 37 | 32 | 60 |
| Overall | 100% | 68/100 | 57/100 | 73/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Gemma 4 26B A4B ITGoogle | Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic | Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 142.0 | 142.2 | 143.6 (best) |
| ECI rank | #103 of 165 | #102 of 165 | #95 of 165 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 73.2% | 71.2% | 82.3% (best) |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | — | 18.3% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 82.2% | 66.7% | 84.4% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 13.2% | 20.3% (best) |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.112 | $1.00 | $0.10 (best) |
| Output | $0.40 (best) | $5.00 | $0.40 (best) |
| Cached input | — | $0.10 | $0.01 (best) |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.184 | $2.00 | $0.175 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 26 providers | Official Anthropic API | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 200,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 64,000 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | gemma-4-26b-a4b-it | claude-haiku-4-5 | qwen3.5-flash |
| API providers | 29 | 48 (best) | 9 |
| Released | Apr 2, 2026 | Oct 15, 2025 | Feb 23, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | Feb 28, 2025 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT$1.92
- Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
- Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5 Flash?
Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 73/100 against Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (68) and Claude Haiku 4.5 (57). It leads on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Qwen3.5 Flash?
Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs $0.112 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (median across 26 API providers); Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.175 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Flash versus $0.184 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (1× as much) and $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (11× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen3.5 Flash scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 143.6 (#95 of 165), Claude Haiku 4.5 142.2 (#102 of 165) and Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 142.0 (#103 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (141.4–145.0 vs 139.4–143.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 73.2%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 82.2%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5 Flash yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Flash leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 Flash has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5. Maximum output per response: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT up to 32,768, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT accepts text and images; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 and Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026; Claude Haiku 4.5 came out Oct 15, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
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