Model comparison
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct vs Qwen3.5-9B
Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 28.4.
Side by side
| Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 33.3 |
| Released | — | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5-9B leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.8 (#311), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 27.5% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 20.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1090 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 19.6 (#234), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 12% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1073 | — |
| DTBench | — | 71.2% |
| LMCA | — | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.45 |
Math Qwen3.5-9B leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.7 (#215), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 61.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1117 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 28.4 (#238), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 79% |
| LMArena Expert | 1064 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.1 (#273), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1033 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1070 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1045 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 54.2 (#279), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1056 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.5 (#263), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1071 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.8 (#287), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1080 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1046 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1053 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.3 versus 27.8 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 2b Instruct and Qwen3.5-9B share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.