Model comparison

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.6

Rank #270 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 55.3 to 31.1.

Side by side

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct specifications
Granite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.638.1
Released—2025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$1.50
Output $ / M tokens—$7.50
Results tracked1425

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.7 (#301), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Coding11121412
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—55.4%
LMArena WebDev—1275
GSO—4.9%
WeirdML—41.2%
BigCodeBench Instruct29.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete35.4%—
ALE-Bench—461.45
AlgoTune—1.44

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Terminal-Bench—27.2%

Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.9 (#230), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts10921372
Kagi LLM Benchmark—49.5%

Math Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 32.8 (#210), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Math11431365

Knowledge Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.6 (#236), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Expert10871338

Multilingual Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.2 (#276), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Non-English10371346
LMArena Chinese10631357
LMArena Russian10601366
LMArena French—1398
LMArena German—1325
LMArena Japanese—1310
LMArena Korean—1305
LMArena Spanish—1360

Instruction Following Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.0 (#276), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following10881355

Long Context Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#252), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query11221378

Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#285), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.0 8b InstructQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Text10961357
LMArena Creative Writing10711333
LMArena Multi-Turn10631365

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 31.6 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.0 8b Instruct or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.5 versus 29.7 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 8b Instruct and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.

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