Verdict
Built from the measurements below
- Gemma 4 26B A4B is more accurate: 15.0% against 1.2% on the same 80 questions, a 13.7-point gap that is statistically significant.
- Reka Flash 3 is 1.3× cheaper per question as billed ($0.0008 vs $0.0011), reasoning tokens included.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B generates text 1.7× faster: 172 tokens per second against 101.
- Reka Flash 3 starts answering sooner: 0.5 s to the first token, against 0.7 s for Gemma 4 26B A4B.
- Gemma 4 26B A4B accepts more context: 262k tokens against 66k.
Which should you choose?
Choose Gemma 4 26B A4B for the most accurate answers of the two, the lower cost per correct answer ($0.0072 against $0.067), faster streaming, a 262k-token context window and more hosts to choose from on OpenRouter (15 against 1). Choose Reka Flash 3 for a quicker first token. The widest subject gap is in economics: Gemma 4 26B A4B answered 4 of 9 correctly, Reka Flash 3 0 of 9. With so few questions per subject, treat this as a lead to test on your own prompts, not a result.
Accuracy gap +13.7 points (z = 3.18). We call a winner only when z is at least 1.96, the usual 95% threshold. Speed, latency and price need a 10% margin.