Gemma4 vs Claude Code: I Tried the Switch. Here's What Broke First.

Every few months someone drops a new open model and the local AI community collectively loses their minds. "This is the one. This kills the subscriptions." It happened with Llama 3. With Qwen. With Gemma 3. None of them actually did it. So when Gemma 4 landed and the numbers looked genuinely scary, I decided to stop theorizing and just try it - wired into my actual de workflow, building actual software. Not chat. Not benchmarks. Shipping code. Here's what happened. What Made This Test Worth Running I'll be honest: I almost didn't bother.