Model comparison

Granite 4.2 30b vs Qwen3 32B

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 30b IBM

41.4

Rank #126 Confirmed

Qwen3 32B Alibaba (Qwen)

38.8

Rank #166 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 32B in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 26.7 to 19.6.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 30b and Qwen3 32B specifications
Granite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
ProviderIBMAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index41.438.8
Released—2025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—16K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.70
Output $ / M tokens—$2.80
Results tracked1126

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 40.4 (#127), Qwen3 32B: 37.3 (#184)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Coding13941358
Aider Polyglot—40%
SciCode—35.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3 32B: 32.3 (#58)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—48.7%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 26.7 (#114), Qwen3 32B: 19.6 (#233)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Hard Prompts13751335
Kagi LLM Benchmark—54.9%
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—5%
DTBench—67.5%
LMCA—17.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—138.51

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 30b: —, Qwen3 32B: 37.9 (#89)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—66.9%
LMArena Math—1399

Knowledge Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 38.5 (#134), Qwen3 32B: 40.0 (#112)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Expert14051362
GPQA Diamond—65.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.9%

Multilingual Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 47.4 (#146), Qwen3 32B: 45.8 (#162)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Non-English13401317
LMArena Chinese14151357
LMArena Russian13421311
LMArena German—1341

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 71.3 (#150), Qwen3 32B: 69.1 (#174)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Instruction Following13461305

Long Context Qwen3 32B leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#135), Qwen3 32B: 43.7 (#83)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Longer Query13591327
Fiction.LiveBench—74.2%

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 30b leads

Granite 4.2 30b: 54.3 (#147), Qwen3 32B: 53.1 (#158)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 4.2 30bQwen3 32B
LMArena Text13631340
LMArena Creative Writing12941297
LMArena Multi-Turn13401331

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Qwen3 32B?

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 4.2 30b or Qwen3 32B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 37.3 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Qwen3 32B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 32B has 26.

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