Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)
Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 38× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.8 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 48.6 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2026-02-17 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Max output | 118K | 30K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $1.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $2.50 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 46 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1375 |
| WeirdML | — | 52.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1459 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,150 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |
Reasoning Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 24% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 65.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 75% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 89.5% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1451 |
| DTBench | — | 90.1% |
| LMCA | — | 38.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 151.98 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |
Math Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 92.2% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1455 |
Knowledge Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 89.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1439 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1263 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1441 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1481 |
| LMArena French | — | 1476 |
| LMArena German | — | 1465 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1449 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1458 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1443 |
Instruction Following Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1420 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1437 |
Writing & Preference Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1438 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1574 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1456 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?
Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 38× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.
Which has the bigger context window?
Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.