Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs Qwen Plus
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen Plus in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 36.3 to 27.4.
- Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 37.1 |
| Released | — | 2024-01-25 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 20 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151), Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1328 |
Reasoning Qwen Plus leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138), Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 17.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1326 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |
Knowledge Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171), Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1328 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 48.1% |
Multilingual Qwen Plus leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198), Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1347 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1323 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1251 |
Instruction Following Qwen Plus leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200), Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1303 |
Long Context Qwen Plus leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185), Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1324 |
Writing & Preference Qwen Plus leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212), Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1336 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Qwen Plus?
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.4 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or Qwen Plus better for coding?
Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.0 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Qwen Plus share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.