Model comparison

Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen Max

Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 69× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 2 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.0 Micro IBM

29.0

Rank #318 Confirmed

Qwen Max

Alibaba (Qwen)

34.7

Rank #230 Confirmed

Summary

They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 1 category and Qwen Max in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen Max leads 30.3 to 9.9.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 28.3% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 56.1% for Qwen Max.
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
Granite 4.0 Micro accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.
Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Granite 4.0 Micro and Qwen Max specifications
	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	29.0	34.7
Released	2025-10-02	2024-04-03
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	131K	33K
Max output	118K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.017	$1.60
Output $ / M tokens	$0.11	$6.40
Results tracked	8	23

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
Aider Polyglot	—	21.8%
LMArena Coding	—	1288

Reasoning Qwen Max leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1269

Math Qwen Max leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	2.8%	16.1%
Omni-MATH	20.9%	—
LMArena Math	—	1275
MATH Level 5	—	67.2%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	1%

Knowledge Qwen Max leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
GPQA Diamond	28.3%	56.1%
MMLU-Pro	39.5%	—
GPQA (HELM)	30.7%	—
LMArena Expert	—	1248

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
LMArena Non-English	—	1263
LMArena Chinese	—	1254
LMArena French	—	1330
LMArena German	—	1254
LMArena Japanese	—	1205
LMArena Korean	—	1142
LMArena Russian	—	1274
LMArena Spanish	—	1290

Instruction Following Granite 4.0 Micro leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
IFEval	84.9%	—
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1262

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
Fiction.LiveBench	—	66.7%
LMArena Longer Query	—	1288

Writing & Preference Qwen Max leads

Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.0 Micro	Qwen Max
LMArena Text	—	1282
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1248
WildBench	67%	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1277

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Qwen Max?

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen Max?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.0 Micro does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Qwen Max share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.