Llama Guard 4 12B vs ShieldGemma 9B
Llama Guard 4 12B (2025) and ShieldGemma 9B (2024) are compact production models from AI at Meta and Google DeepMind. Llama Guard 4 12B ships a 164k-token context window, while ShieldGemma 9B ships a 8k-token context window. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads. It focuses on practical selection signals rather than broad model-family marketing.
Llama Guard 4 12B fits 21x more tokens; pick it for long-context work and ShieldGemma 9B for tighter calls.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama Guard 4 12B | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | general production evaluation |
| Decision fit | RAG, Long context, and Classification | Classification |
| Context window | 164k | 8k |
| Cheapest output | $0.18/1M tokens | - |
| Provider routes | 3 tracked | 1 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 shared | 0 shared |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama Guard 4 12B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Llama Guard 4 12B has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Llama Guard 4 12B uniquely exposes Structured outputs in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Llama Guard 4 12B for RAG, Long context, and Classification.
- Local decision data tags ShieldGemma 9B for Classification.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama Guard 4 12B
$189
Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter
ShieldGemma 9B
Unavailable
No complete token price in local provider data
Cost delta unavailable until both models have sourced input and output token prices.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Check replacement coverage for Structured outputs before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama Guard 4 12B adds Structured outputs in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2025-04-05 | 2024-07-01 |
| Context window | 164k | 8k |
| Parameters | 12B | 9B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Decoder Only |
| License | Llama 2 Community | Gemma |
| Openness | Open weights | Open weights |
| Weights | Unknown | Unknown |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: conditional |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-08 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama Guard 4 12B | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.18/1M tokens | - |
| Output price | $0.18/1M tokens | - |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama Guard 4 12B | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | No |
| Code execution | No | No |
| IDE integration | No | No |
| Computer use | No | No |
| Parallel agents | No | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark scores are currently available for this pair.
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-09. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.