Model comparison
Granite 4.2 30b vs Mercury 2
Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 6 categories and Mercury 2 in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 41.0 to 33.5.
- Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 41.8 | 39.1 |
| Released | — | 2026-02-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 128K |
| Max output | — | 50K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.75 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126), Mercury 2: 33.5 (#255)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1396 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1171 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112), Mercury 2: 23.8 (#170)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1374 | 1362 |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138), Mercury 2: 36.2 (#172)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1406 | 1358 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |
Multilingual Too close to call
Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151), Mercury 2: 46.6 (#157)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1340 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1414 | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1304 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155), Mercury 2: 70.2 (#165)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1347 | 1329 |
Long Context Too close to call
Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140), Mercury 2: 40.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1359 | 1330 |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156), Mercury 2: 53.8 (#155)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1361 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1288 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1339 | 1358 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Mercury 2?
Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 30b or Mercury 2 better for coding?
Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.0 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Mercury 2 share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.