Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs Granite 3.1 2b Instruct
Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.8 vs 32.6), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 4 categories and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct in 4 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in multilingual, where Gemma 3 12B leads 45.9 to 29.2.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 32.6 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | — |
| Max output | 8K | — |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | — |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | — |
| Results tracked | 24 | 12 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads
Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 32.9 (#255)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1149 |
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
Reasoning Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 21.0 (#206)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1138 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | — |
Math Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads
Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.6 (#206)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1159 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | — |
Knowledge Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.3 (#223)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1131 |
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 29.2 (#264)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1068 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1063 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1138 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | — |
Instruction Following Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 58.0 (#259)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1116 |
Long Context Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 35.0 (#239)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1155 |
Writing & Preference Gemma 3 12B leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205), Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 34.3 (#269)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1127 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1116 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1099 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than Granite 3.1 2b Instruct?
Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.8 vs 32.6), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Is Gemma 3 12B or Granite 3.1 2b Instruct better for coding?
Granite 3.1 2b Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 32.9 versus 31.2 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has 12.