Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) Moonshot AI

41.2

Rank #140 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads 62.3 to 31.1.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) specifications
Granite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
ProviderIBMMoonshot AI
Noometry Index31.641.2
Released—2025-07-12
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—262K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.57
Output $ / M tokens—$2.30
Results tracked1442

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.4 (#102)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Coding11121399
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—63.4%
Aider Polyglot—59.1%
GSO—4.9%
WeirdML—42.8%
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—
ALE-Bench—597.5

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.4 (#64)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
Terminal-Bench—35.7%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—59.1%
METR Time Horizons—59.2%

Reasoning Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 23.3 (#179)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Hard Prompts10921384
SimpleBench—26.3%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—64.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.01
ForecastBench—60.2

Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.7 (#83)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Math11431397
Omni-MATH—65.4%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—21.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 37.3 (#157)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Expert10871365
MMLU-Pro—81.9%
Confabulations—20.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—17.9%
GPQA (HELM)—65.3%

Multilingual Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.6 (#130)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Non-English10371372
LMArena Chinese10631415
LMArena Russian10601385
LMArena French—1379
LMArena German—1387
LMArena Japanese—1349
LMArena Korean—1325
LMArena Spanish—1386

Instruction Following Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.1 (#156)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Instruction Following10881348
IFEval—85%

Long Context Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#145)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Longer Query11221353
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—17.6%

Writing & Preference Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.3 (#78)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Text10961380
LMArena Creative Writing10711350
LMArena Multi-Turn10631371
Short-Story Creative Writing—85.6%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1666
WildBench—86.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better for coding?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42.

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