Model comparison
Granite 4.2 30b vs Qwen3-30B-A3B
Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3-30B-A3B in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 41.4 to 31.0.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.8 | 38.9 |
| Released | — | 2025-04-28 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 41K |
| Max output | — | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.12 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.50 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 32 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.5 (#194)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1396 | 1416 |
| SciCode | — | 33.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 29.8% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3-30B-A3B: 29.8 (#82)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 41.4% |
Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 22.2 (#204)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1374 | 1398 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 54.9% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 8% |
| DTBench | — | 69.3% |
| LMCA | — | 22.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.63 |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.4 (#157)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 47.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 70.3% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1394 |
Knowledge Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 41.8 (#105)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1406 | 1396 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 70.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 12.3% |
Multilingual Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 49.5 (#132)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1340 | 1372 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1414 | 1433 |
| LMArena Russian | 1343 | 1370 |
| LMArena French | — | 1418 |
| LMArena German | — | 1380 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1337 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1331 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1404 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 72.0 (#142)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1347 | 1363 |
Long Context Granite 4.2 30b leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 31.0 (#283)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1359 | 1379 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 40.6% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-30B-A3B leads
Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156), Qwen3-30B-A3B: 55.6 (#143)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1361 | 1384 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1288 | 1317 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1339 | 1378 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 75.3% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Qwen3-30B-A3B?
Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 30b or Qwen3-30B-A3B better for coding?
Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.0 versus 37.5 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Qwen3-30B-A3B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-30B-A3B has 32.