Model comparison
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 62.2 to 29.6.
- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.8 | 47.5 |
| Released | — | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $3 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 28.3 (#316), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1090 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 20.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 20.5 (#235), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1073 | 1449 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.65 |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.2 (#217), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1117 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 93.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.0 (#241), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1064 | 1454 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.0 (#278), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1033 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1070 | 1477 |
| LMArena Russian | 1045 | 1434 |
| LMArena French | — | 1455 |
| LMArena German | — | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1379 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 53.9 (#284), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1056 | 1425 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.5 (#268), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1070 | 1439 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.6 (#292), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1080 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1046 | 1404 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1053 | 1438 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 28.3 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 2b Instruct and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.