Model comparison
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads 57.9 to 31.1.
Side by side
| Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.6 | 42.0 |
| Released | — | 2026-02-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $2 |
| Results tracked | 14 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1112 | 1410 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1254 |
| SciCode | — | 29.3% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 29.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 35.4% | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1092 | 1400 |
| CritPt | — | 0.6% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 10% |
| DTBench | — | 80% |
| LMCA | — | 29.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.52 |
Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1143 | 1404 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 70% |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1087 | 1408 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 83.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1037 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1063 | 1457 |
| LMArena Russian | 1060 | 1376 |
| LMArena French | — | 1412 |
| LMArena German | — | 1367 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1325 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1356 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1392 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1088 | 1379 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1122 | 1389 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 8b Instruct | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1096 | 1395 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1071 | 1346 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1063 | 1390 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.8 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B share?
12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.