Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Granite 3.0 2b Instruct

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct IBM

30.8

Rank #286 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Granite 3.0 2b Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 70.2 to 29.6.
  • Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Granite 3.0 2b Instruct specifications
Claude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index50.330.8
Released2026-02-17—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$3—
Output $ / M tokens$15—
Results tracked5713

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 28.3 (#316)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Coding15041090
SWE-bench Verified75.2%—
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
LMArena WebDev1522—
SciCode46.8%—
WeirdML66.1%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—20.5%
ALE-Bench1,327—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
Terminal-Bench53.4%—
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
DeepResearch Bench54.9%—
OSWorld72.1%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—
Vending-Bench 27,204—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 20.5 (#235)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts14841073
ARC-AGI-260.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%—
ARC-AGI-186.5%—
CritPt3.1%—
Chess Puzzles13%—
Thematic Generalization76.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—
DTBench89.9%—
LMCA46.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24—
ForecastBench62—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.2 (#217)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Math14621117
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%—
ProofBench45%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.0 (#241)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Expert15001064
GPQA Diamond87.4%—
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.0 (#278)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Non-English14401033
LMArena Chinese14911070
LMArena Russian14401045
LMArena French1465—
LMArena German1428—
LMArena Japanese1420—
LMArena Korean1411—
LMArena Spanish1464—

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 53.9 (#284)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14751056

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.5 (#268)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14791070

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.6 (#292)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.0 2b Instruct
LMArena Text14581080
LMArena Creative Writing14351046
LMArena Multi-Turn14641053
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1810—
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Granite 3.0 2b Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Granite 3.0 2b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 28.3 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Granite 3.0 2b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has 13.

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