# FunctionGemma

11 Hacker News commenters recommended FunctionGemma and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A tiny open model for function calling that runs on-device and is praised for its local-first direction; critics say it is not reliable enough for tool calls.

## Why people recommend it

- Small, fast, runs on-device (4 comments): "Check out the demo videos and colab that show you how to load this model onto a device relatively easily." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318418)) "Our goal here was the leanest weight and token base for blazing fast performance for you all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46326110)) "the parameters were megabytes and not gigabytes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322144))
- Praised local-first, on-device direction (4 comments): "Much-appreciate the focus on local-first (on-device) !" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319229)) "I felt that was a very under appreciated direction" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322165)) "New models like functiongemma are promising" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46390148))

## What people warn about

- Not reliable or capable enough (4 comments): "it's still not quite capable enough for my target compared to FunctionGemma" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49760514)) "the problem is that is not reliable enough for a terminal assistant" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49568789)) "I would be wary of having a LLM with 85% accuracy call tools on my system." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319601))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Needle2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/needle2.md): 51 recommend
- [Cactus Needle 3](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cactus-needle-3.md): 10 recommend
- [Needle 26M](https://hackerapproved.com/p/needle-26m-tool-calling-model.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "FunctionGemma", https://hackerapproved.com/p/functiongemma-270m/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).