Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Ministral 8B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.0

Rank #143 Confirmed

Ministral 8B

Mistral AI

27.8

Rank #321 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 37.7 to 12.5.
Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.06 / $0.25 for Granite 4.2 8B.
Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Ministral 8B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.0	27.8
Released	—	2024-10-01
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	128K
Max output	118K	128K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.10
Results tracked	11	17

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Ministral 8B: 34.4 (#226)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Coding	1379	1202

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Ministral 8B: 16.2 (#140)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	11.1%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Ministral 8B: 17.7 (#279)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	1191
DTBench	—	45.7%

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Ministral 8B: 23.7 (#262)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Math	—	1188
MATH Level 5	—	14.9%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Ministral 8B: 12.5 (#292)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Expert	1380	1170
GPQA Diamond	—	27.1%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	7.4%

Multilingual Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Ministral 8B: 35.3 (#242)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Non-English	1299	1165
LMArena Chinese	1361	1193
LMArena Russian	1283	1195

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Ministral 8B: 60.7 (#245)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	1161

Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#222)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Longer Query	1323	1212

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Ministral 8B: 39.8 (#241)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Ministral 8B
LMArena Text	1319	1191
LMArena Creative Writing	1238	1175
LMArena Multi-Turn	1299	1166

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Ministral 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Ministral 8B?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Granite 4.2 8B lists at $0.06 and $0.25.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Ministral 8B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Ministral 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.