Noometry

Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Granite 3.0 8b Instruct

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 Anthropic

61.9

Rank #10 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 32.8.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index61.931.6
Released2026-09-28—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$2—
Output $ / M tokens$10—
Results tracked3214

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding15131112
FrontierCode52.1%—
CursorBench55.5%—
LMArena WebDev1774—
FrontierSWE61.9%—
SciCode61%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—29.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—35.4%
ALE-Bench1,819—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
APEX-Agents75.5%—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts14951092
NYT Connections (extended)80.5%—
CritPt31.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles65%—
Epoch Capabilities Index165.03—

Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Math15101143
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)88.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 480.5%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025100%—
ProofBench100%—
FrontierMath Erdős2.9%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert15401087
GPQA Diamond95.6%—
SimpleQA Verified46.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Vision1289—
Furniture Assembly75%—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English14521037
LMArena Chinese15221063
LMArena Russian14511060

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14951088

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14981122

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285)

BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5.5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Text14711096
LMArena Creative Writing14651071
LMArena Multi-Turn14741063

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Granite 3.0 8b Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14.

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