Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 59× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max'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 Max in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Max output | 118K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 4% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.38 |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 73.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1446 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1455 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1478 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |
Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1419 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1438 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1402 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1446 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 59× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3 Max?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Qwen3 Max share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.