Model comparison
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Mercury 2.5
Mercury 2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- The widest gap is in math, where Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads 33.0 to 23.3.
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 32.4 | 33.5 |
| Released | — | 2026-09-08 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 260K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.04 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 4 |
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Category by category
Coding Mercury 2.5 leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233), Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 38.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 301.65 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207), Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1145 | — |
Math Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209), Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | — | 3% |
| LMArena Math | 1152 | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266), Mercury 2.5: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Mercury 2.5?
Mercury 2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Mercury 2.5 better for coding?
Mercury 2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.5 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Mercury 2.5 share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2.5 has 4.