Google: Gemma 3 12B (free)
Analysis Summary
Gemma 3 12B in its free form gives Google-backed vision support and instruction following at no cost, though its reasoning and coding benchmarks remain in the lower tier compared to larger models.
It works well for simple summarisation, tagging, or basic Q&A style tasks rather than software engineering or multi-step agentic workflows. Its 32K context window is modest for longer documents.
As a free option, it is a reasonable sandbox choice for testing multimodal use cases before committing budget to a stronger paid model.
Assessed July 25, 2026
Editorial notes
The free Gemma 3 12B from Google adds vision support and a modest 32K context window, suitable for lightweight tasks but limited in reasoning depth.
Rankings consider pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, and real-world applicability and are refreshed as new models launch. Feedback?
DFO Verdict
The free Gemma 3 12B from Google adds vision support and a modest 32K context window, suitable for lightweight tasks but limited in reasoning depth.
Benchmark scores
Magenta = intelligence · Ink = technical/agentic · Cyan = content & long-context · Grey = community benchmarks. Data: Artificial Analysis, Hugging Face.
8.8 Intelligence Index·6.3 Coding Index·5.8 Agentic Index·18.3 Math Index
How Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) compares
Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) ranks #266 of 401 AI models we track for overall intelligence, #162 of 176 for coding, #109 of 157 for agentic tasks. Its 33K-token context window is larger than 27% of the models we list. Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) is currently free to use via OpenRouter.
Dark bar = input · light bar = output, scaled to the priciest peer.
1M tokens ≈ 8 full-length novels or ~2,500 pages of business documents in a single request.
Strongest on content. The pulled-in value corner is the trade-off, and if the shape matters more than the price, this is your model.
Compare shapes side-by-side →About Google: Gemma 3 12B (free)
Gemma 3 introduces multimodality, supporting vision-language input and text outputs. It handles context windows up to 128k tokens, understands over 140 languages, and offers improved math, reasoning, and chat capabilities,..
Frequently asked questions about Google: Gemma 3 12B (free)
How much does Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) cost?
Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) is currently available for free via OpenRouter.
What is the context window of Google: Gemma 3 12B (free)?
Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) has a context window of 32,768 tokens (33K).
Is Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) good for coding?
On our coding benchmark index, Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) ranks #162 of 176 models, placing it in the broader range of the field for code generation and debugging.
What can Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) do?
Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) supports image/vision input.
Who created Google: Gemma 3 12B (free)?
Google: Gemma 3 12B (free) is developed by Google and was released on March 13, 2025.
