Model comparison

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Qwen3 32B

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct IBM

32.4

Rank #258 Confirmed

Qwen3 32B Alibaba (Qwen)

39.2

Rank #172 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 32B in 8 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 32B leads 52.9 to 35.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and 48.7% for Qwen3 32B.

Side by side

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Qwen3 32B specifications
Granite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index32.439.2
Released—2025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—16K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.70
Output $ / M tokens—$2.80
Results tracked1326

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233), Qwen3 32B: 37.7 (#190)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Coding11861358
Aider Polyglot—40%
SciCode—35.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120), Qwen3 32B: 32.6 (#62)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%48.7%

Reasoning Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207), Qwen3 32B: 20.2 (#241)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Hard Prompts11451334
Kagi LLM Benchmark—54.9%
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—5%
DTBench—67.5%
LMCA—17.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—138.51

Math Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209), Qwen3 32B: 39.7 (#99)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Math11521399
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—66.9%

Knowledge Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220), Qwen3 32B: 40.0 (#125)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Expert11421362
GPQA Diamond—65.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.9%

Multilingual Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260), Qwen3 32B: 45.6 (#167)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Non-English10991317
LMArena Chinese11451357
LMArena Russian10921311
LMArena German—1341

Instruction Following Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259), Qwen3 32B: 68.9 (#179)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Instruction Following11311305

Long Context Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241), Qwen3 32B: 43.8 (#87)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Longer Query11621327
Fiction.LiveBench—74.2%

Writing & Preference Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266), Qwen3 32B: 52.9 (#163)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructQwen3 32B
LMArena Text11501340
LMArena Creative Writing11291297
LMArena Multi-Turn11081331

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Qwen3 32B?

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Qwen3 32B better for coding?

Qwen3 32B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Qwen3 32B share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 32B has 26.

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