Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen3.5-Flash

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.1

Rank #266 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-Flash Alibaba (Qwen)

42.3

Rank #105 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 58.2 to 31.2.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash specifications
Granite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.142.3
Released—2026-02-23
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window—1M
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.10
Output $ / M tokens—$0.40
Results tracked1432

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#297), Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.9 (#234)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Coding11131412
LMArena WebDev—1243
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—
ALE-Bench—221.8

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
Vending-Bench 2—462.69

Reasoning Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.0 (#227), Qwen3.5-Flash: 32.9 (#63)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Hard Prompts10921404
Chess Puzzles—21%
Mystery Game Puzzles—20%
DTBench—82.9%
LMCA—29.1%
Epoch Capabilities Index—143.98

Math Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 30.3 (#211), Qwen3.5-Flash: 36.3 (#117)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Math11431407
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—84.4%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—6.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#233), Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Expert10871408
GPQA Diamond—82.3%
SimpleQA Verified—20.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—10.5%

Multilingual Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.4 (#271), Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.7 (#116)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Non-English10371385
LMArena Chinese10631446
LMArena Russian10601379
LMArena French—1412
LMArena German—1389
LMArena Japanese—1369
LMArena Korean—1344
LMArena Spanish—1399

Instruction Following Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.2 (#271), Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.8 (#133)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Instruction Following10881374

Long Context Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#247), Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#119)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Longer Query11221392

Writing & Preference Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.2 (#280), Qwen3.5-Flash: 58.2 (#117)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Text10961397
LMArena Creative Writing10711343
LMArena Multi-Turn10631393

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

Qwen3.5-Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.9 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.

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