Model comparison
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 1 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3 8B in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Qwen3 8B leads 29.9 to 23.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and 42.6% for Qwen3 8B.
Side by side
| Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 33.3 |
| Released | — | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 131K |
| Max output | — | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.9 (#232), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 23.9 (#113), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 42.6% |
Reasoning Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 21.2 (#204), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1146 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.4 (#210), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1152 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.6 (#218), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#255), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.9 (#254), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | — |
Long Context Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#236), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.7 (#261), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (33.9 vs 33.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Qwen3 8B share?
1 benchmark has published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.