On This Page7 sections
FASTVLM VS GEMMA 4 / GEMMA 3N
Gemma 4 (April 2026) and Gemma 3n (2025) are Google’s general multimodal models for phones and laptops; FastVLM is a vision-first model. The difference in scope matters more than any score: Gemma answers with audio, long context and agent tooling, FastVLM concentrates on fast, high-resolution image understanding.
| Feature | FastVLM | Gemma 4 (E2B / E4B) | Gemma 3n (E2B / E4B) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer · release | Apple · 2025 | Google · 2 April 2026 | Google · 2025 |
| On-device sizes | 0.5B · 1.5B · 7B | E2B · E4B (larger 12B, 26B-A4B, 31B for workstations) | E2B · E4B (effective parameters) |
| Modalities | Image + text | Image, video as frames, text; audio on E2B/E4B | Image, audio, text |
| Context window | Short prompts; not a long-context model | 128K tokens (E2B/E4B, Google) | 32K tokens (Google) |
| Browser | 0.5B via Transformers.js (this site) | Runtime-dependent (LiteRT / MediaPipe style deployments) | Runtime-dependent (Google AI Edge) |
| MLX / Apple Silicon | Official MLX app | Community mlx-vlm conversions | Community mlx-vlm conversions |
| License | Apple ML Research license | Gemma Terms of Use | Gemma Terms of Use |
Checked 2026-09-17
Decision summary
- Gemma is the choice for assistants that need speech, long documents or video alongside images.
- FastVLM is the choice when the whole job is “look at this high-resolution image and answer quickly”, particularly inside Apple apps.
- Neither vendor publishes a comparison against the other; treat modality and runtime fit as the deciding factors.
Choose FastVLM when
- Image-only input at high resolution
- Browser demo without a vendor runtime
- Apple-first deployment
Choose Gemma when
- Audio or video input
- Long context and tool-using agents
- Android and cross-platform runtimes from Google AI Edge
How to read this table
Gemma sizes are “effective” parameter counts (E2B ≈ 2.3B dense-equivalent memory) and their multimodal benchmarks use Google’s harness; FastVLM’s numbers come from Apple’s. The table records documented capabilities, not measured quality.
Questions
Can Gemma 4 run in Transformers.js?
Check the current Transformers.js model list; Google’s reference path for browsers and phones is its own AI Edge runtime. FastVLM-0.5B already has an ONNX build you can try here.
Sources
Continue
Continue Reading
More articles connected to the same themes, protocols, and tools.
Referenced Tools
Browse entries that are adjacent to the topics covered in this article.
