Model comparison
Granite 4.2 3b vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 37.7 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 Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 55.5 to 47.9.
Side by side
| Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 37.7 |
| Released | — | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Granite 4.2 3b leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1363 | 1413 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1308 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
Math Not comparable
Granite 4.2 3b: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | — | 1364 |
Knowledge Too close to call
Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1313 | 1337 |
Multilingual Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1345 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1268 | 1356 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1367 |
| LMArena French | — | 1394 |
| LMArena German | — | 1324 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1309 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1307 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |
Instruction Following Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1271 | 1356 |
Long Context Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1293 | 1379 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1295 | 1356 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1215 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1293 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 4.2 3b or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.4 versus 36.2 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.