Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 93.3% for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.6 Plus 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 | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 47.5 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Max output | 118K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1467 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 17% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1449 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.65 |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 93.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1454 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1477 |
| LMArena French | — | 1455 |
| LMArena German | — | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1425 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1439 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1404 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1438 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.