Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen2.5-Coder-32B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 32.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.0

Rank #143 Confirmed

Qwen2.5-Coder-32B

Alibaba (Qwen)

32.9

Rank #239 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 39.9 to 22.4.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.66 / $1 for Qwen2.5-Coder-32B.
Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.0	32.9
Released	—	2024-09-18
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	33K
Max output	118K	29K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.66
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$1
Results tracked	11	31

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), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 22.4 (#328)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Coding	1379	1276
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	—	9%
Aider Polyglot	—	16.4%
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	49%
LiveBench Coding	—	56.9%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	58%
HumanEval+	—	87.2%
MBPP+	—	77%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 20.4 (#220)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	1251
LiveBench Reasoning	—	42.1%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	49.9%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	119.41
HellaSwag	—	83%
LiveBench	—	46.2%
WinoGrande	—	80.8%

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 30.8 (#203)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LiveBench Math	—	46.6%
LMArena Math	—	1251
GSM8K	—	93%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 32.9 (#200)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Expert	1380	1221
ARC (AI2) Challenge	—	70.5%
MMLU	—	79.1%

Multilingual Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 38.0 (#230)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Non-English	1299	1205
LMArena Chinese	1361	1222
LMArena Russian	1283	1228

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 61.6 (#240)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	1223
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	58.7%

Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 37.9 (#204)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Longer Query	1323	1251

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Qwen2.5-Coder-32B: 41.8 (#235)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen2.5-Coder-32B
LMArena Text	1319	1230
LMArena Creative Writing	1238	1174
LMArena Multi-Turn	1299	1222
LiveBench Language	—	23.3%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen2.5-Coder-32B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 32.9 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5-Coder-32B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5-Coder-32B lists at $0.66 and $1.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen2.5-Coder-32B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 22.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5-Coder-32B has 31.