Model comparison

Granite 4.1 8b vs Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.1 8b IBM

37.4

Rank #205 Confirmed

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) Moonshot AI

41.2

Rank #140 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.1 8b scores higher in 1 category and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads 62.3 to 48.1.

Side by side

Granite 4.1 8b and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) specifications
Granite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
ProviderIBMMoonshot AI
Noometry Index37.441.2
Released—2025-07-12
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—262K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.57
Output $ / M tokens—$2.30
Results tracked1342

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 30.1 (#297), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.4 (#102)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Coding13121399
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—63.4%
Aider Polyglot—59.1%
LMArena WebDev1192—
GSO—4.9%
WeirdML—42.8%
ALE-Bench—597.5

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.1 8b: —, Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.4 (#64)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
Terminal-Bench—35.7%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—59.1%
METR Time Horizons—59.2%

Reasoning Granite 4.1 8b leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 25.7 (#143), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 23.3 (#179)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Hard Prompts12931384
SimpleBench—26.3%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—64.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.01
ForecastBench—60.2

Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 36.4 (#166), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.7 (#83)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Math13121397
Omni-MATH—65.4%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—21.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 36.1 (#174), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 37.3 (#157)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Expert13091365
MMLU-Pro—81.9%
Confabulations—20.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—17.9%
GPQA (HELM)—65.3%

Multilingual Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 41.7 (#204), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.6 (#130)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Non-English12611372
LMArena Chinese13371415
LMArena Russian12401385
LMArena French—1379
LMArena German—1387
LMArena Japanese—1349
LMArena Korean—1325
LMArena Spanish—1386

Instruction Following Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 66.9 (#203), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.1 (#156)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Instruction Following12691348
IFEval—85%

Long Context Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 38.7 (#193), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#145)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Longer Query12751353
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—17.6%

Writing & Preference Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 4.1 8b: 48.1 (#204), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.3 (#78)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.1 8bKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Text12901380
LMArena Creative Writing12511350
LMArena Multi-Turn12681371
Short-Story Creative Writing—85.6%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1666
WildBench—86.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.1 8b better than Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 37.4 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 4.1 8b or Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better for coding?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 30.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.1 8b and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.1 8b has 13 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42.

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