Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Granite 3.1 2b Instruct

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.1 to 32.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.1

Rank #42 Confirmed

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct IBM

32.6

Rank #243 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Granite 3.1 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 70.4 to 34.3.
  • Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct specifications
Claude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index50.132.6
Released2026-02-17—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$3—
Output $ / M tokens$15—
Results tracked5712

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.0 (#62), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 32.9 (#255)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Coding15041149
SWE-bench Verified75.2%—
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
LMArena WebDev1521—
SciCode46.8%—
WeirdML66.1%—
ALE-Bench1,327—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#26), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 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 (#40), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 21.0 (#206)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts14851138
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 Index152.25—
ForecastBench62—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.9 (#41), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.6 (#206)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Math14631159
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: 51.6 (#60), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.3 (#223)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Expert15001131
GPQA Diamond87.4%—
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#61), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.6 (#39), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 29.2 (#264)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Non-English14401068
LMArena Chinese14911138
LMArena Russian14401063
LMArena French1465—
LMArena German1428—
LMArena Japanese1419—
LMArena Korean1411—
LMArena Spanish1465—

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.6 (#23), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 58.0 (#259)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14761116

Long Context Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#40), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 35.0 (#239)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14791155

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.4 (#22), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 34.3 (#269)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
LMArena Text14581127
LMArena Creative Writing14351116
LMArena Multi-Turn14641099
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1810—
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Granite 3.1 2b Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.1 to 32.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Granite 3.1 2b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.0 versus 32.9 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has 12.

Related comparisons

Go deeper