Gemma 4 (Google) vs Cohere Transcribe
Which one should you pick? Here's the full breakdown.
Gemma 4 (Google)
Google DeepMind's open-weights model family -- multimodal, 256K context, runs on edge devices
Cohere Transcribe
Cohere's first audio model -- launched 2026-03-26 under Apache 2.0, 2B parameters, #1 on Hugging Face Open ASR Leaderboard (5.42 avg WER), 14 enterprise-critical languages. Free API with rate limits; Model Vault for production
| Category | Gemma 4 (Google) | Cohere Transcribe |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| Output Quality | 8.0 | 9.0 |
| Value | 10.0 | 9.0 |
| Features | 8.0 | 7.0 |
| Overall | 8.3 | 8.0 |
Pricing Comparison
| Feature | Gemma 4 (Google) | Cohere Transcribe |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Starting Price | $0 | $0 |
Benchmark Head-to-Head
Gemma 4 31B benchmarks — Cohere Transcribe has no published benchmarks
| Benchmark | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU | Knowledge across 57 subjects | 83% |
| GPQA Diamond | Graduate-level science questions | 84.3% |
| AIME 2026 | 89.2% | |
| HumanEval | Python code generation | 85% |
Which Should You Pick?
Pick Gemma 4 (Google) if...
- ✓Better value for money (10/10)
- ✓More features (8 vs 7)
Developers and businesses who need a permissively licensed multimodal LLM they can self-host or fine-tune. Especially good for multilingual use cases and on-device deployment.
Visit Gemma 4 (Google)Pick Cohere Transcribe if...
- ✓Higher output quality (9 vs 8)
Enterprise teams transcribing English, European, and major APAC languages at scale who want open weights they can self-host, fine-tune, or deploy on-prem. The Apache 2.0 license removes a major procurement blocker compared to proprietary ASR, and the accuracy tier is now best-in-class for open models.
Visit Cohere TranscribeOur Verdict
Gemma 4 (Google) edges out Cohere Transcribe with a 8.3 vs 8.0 overall score. Both are solid picks, but Gemma 4 (Google) has the advantage in value.