alt Hacker NewsI still don't understand the difference between Gemma and Gemini for on-device, since both don't need network access. From https://developer.android.com/ai/gemini-nano :
"Gemini Nano allows you to deliver rich generative AI experiences without needing a network connection or sending data to the cloud." -- replace Gemini with Gemma and the sentence still valid.
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According go the Gemma 3n preview blog, Gemma 3n shares the same architecture as the upcoming version of Gemini Nano.
The ‘n’ presumably stands for Nano.
Nano is a proprietary model that ships with Android. Gemma is an open model that can be adapted and used anywhere.
Sources: https://developers.googleblog.com/en/introducing-gemma-3n/
Video in the in the blog linked in this post
Gemma is open source and apache 2.0 licensed. If you want to include it with an app you have to package it yourself.
gemini nano is an android api that you dont control at all.
I suspect the difference is in the training data. Gemini is much more locked down and if it tries to repeat something from the draining data verbatim you will get a 'recitation error'.
Perplexity.ai gave an easier to understand response than Gemini 2.5 afaict.
Gemini nano is for Android only.
Gemma is available for other platforms and has multiple size options.
So it seems like Gemini nano might be a very focused Gemma everywhere to follow the biology metaphor instead of the Italian name interpretation
Licensing. You can't use Gemini Nano weights directly (at least commercial ly) and must interact with them through Android MLKit or similar Google approved runtimes.
You can use Gemma commercially using whatever runtime or framework you can get to run it.