Model comparison

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct vs Qwen3 32B

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct IBM

30.8

Rank #286 Confirmed

Qwen3 32B Alibaba (Qwen)

39.2

Rank #172 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 32B in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 32B leads 52.9 to 29.6.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct and Qwen3 32B specifications
Granite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index30.839.2
Released—2025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—16K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.70
Output $ / M tokens—$2.80
Results tracked1326

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 28.3 (#316), Qwen3 32B: 37.7 (#190)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Coding10901358
Aider Polyglot—40%
SciCode—35.4%
BigCodeBench Instruct20.5%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —, Qwen3 32B: 32.6 (#62)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—48.7%

Reasoning Too close to call

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 20.5 (#235), Qwen3 32B: 20.2 (#241)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Hard Prompts10731334
Kagi LLM Benchmark—54.9%
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—5%
DTBench—67.5%
LMCA—17.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—138.51

Math Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.2 (#217), Qwen3 32B: 39.7 (#99)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Math11171399
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—66.9%

Knowledge Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.0 (#241), Qwen3 32B: 40.0 (#125)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Expert10641362
GPQA Diamond—65.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.9%

Multilingual Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.0 (#278), Qwen3 32B: 45.6 (#167)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Non-English10331317
LMArena Chinese10701357
LMArena Russian10451311
LMArena German—1341

Instruction Following Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 53.9 (#284), Qwen3 32B: 68.9 (#179)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Instruction Following10561305

Long Context Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.5 (#268), Qwen3 32B: 43.8 (#87)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Longer Query10701327
Fiction.LiveBench—74.2%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.6 (#292), Qwen3 32B: 52.9 (#163)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 2b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Text10801340
LMArena Creative Writing10461297
LMArena Multi-Turn10531331

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct better than Qwen3 32B?

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct or Qwen3 32B better for coding?

Qwen3 32B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 28.3 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 2b Instruct and Qwen3 32B share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 32B has 26.

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