Model comparison

Granite 4.2 30b vs Mistral Small

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 33.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 30b IBM

41.8

Rank #130 Confirmed

Mistral Small

Mistral AI

33.4

Rank #243 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 39.1 to 31.0.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 30b and Mistral Small specifications
	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	41.8	33.4
Released	—	2024-02-26
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	—	262K
Max output	—	256K
Input $ / M tokens	—	$0.15
Output $ / M tokens	—	$0.60
Results tracked	11	39

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126), Mistral Small: 34.0 (#247)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Coding	1396	1362
SciCode	—	26.5%
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	36.1%
LiveBench Coding	—	36.2%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	46.6%
ALE-Bench	—	497.62

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Mistral Small: 28.1 (#93)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	37.1%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112), Mistral Small: 19.8 (#250)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Hard Prompts	1374	1335
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	37.8%
CritPt	—	0%
LiveBench Reasoning	—	44.8%
DTBench	—	70.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	53.7%
LMCA	—	20.6%
LiveBench	—	44%

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Mistral Small: 16.4 (#293)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	5.8%
LiveBench Math	—	39.9%
LMArena Math	—	1341
MATH Level 5	—	46.8%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138), Mistral Small: 31.0 (#222)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Expert	1406	1291
GPQA Diamond	—	47.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	5.1%
MMLU	—	68.7%

Multimodal Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Mistral Small: 33.5 (#96)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Vision	—	1142

Multilingual Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151), Mistral Small: 45.5 (#169)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Non-English	1340	1315
LMArena Chinese	1414	1340
LMArena Russian	1343	1324
LMArena French	—	1337
LMArena German	—	1340
LMArena Japanese	—	1275
LMArena Korean	—	1259
LMArena Spanish	—	1346

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155), Mistral Small: 66.4 (#209)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Instruction Following	1347	1310
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	63.7%

Long Context Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140), Mistral Small: 40.4 (#156)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Longer Query	1359	1327

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156), Mistral Small: 52.5 (#171)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 30b	Mistral Small
LMArena Text	1361	1338
LMArena Creative Writing	1288	1305
LMArena Multi-Turn	1339	1344
LiveBench Language	—	30.5%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Mistral Small?