Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs Qwen3.5 27B
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.4 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 1 category and Qwen3.5 27B in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 59.3 to 47.2.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.4 | 41.9 |
| Released | — | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 40.0 (#151), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1361 | 1427 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1358 |
| WeirdML | — | 39.5% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 349.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen3.5 27B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 201.98 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 26.0 (#138), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1306 | 1414 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 47.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 45.5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.4% |
| LMCA | — | 34% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1429 |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 36.3 (#171), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1315 | 1428 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1241 |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.1 (#198), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1390 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1269 | 1478 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1390 |
| LMArena French | — | 1410 |
| LMArena German | — | 1393 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1345 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1358 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1407 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.1 (#200), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1273 | 1393 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.2 (#185), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1291 | 1413 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.2 (#212), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1293 | 1409 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1205 | 1362 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1290 | 1410 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Qwen3.5 27B?
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 39.4 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or Qwen3.5 27B 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 Qwen3.5 27B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.