Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3-4B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Qwen3-4B

Alibaba (Qwen)

31.9

Rank #264 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 26.6 to 19.2.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3-4B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.5	31.9
Released	—	2025-04-29
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	—
Max output	118K	—
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	—
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	—
Results tracked	11	6

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

Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Qwen3-4B: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
LMArena Coding	1380	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3-4B: 27.6 (#100)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	35.7%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Qwen3-4B: 19.2 (#268)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
Chess Puzzles	—	4%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	—

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3-4B: 29.7 (#240)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	38.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	52.2%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Qwen3-4B: 33.0 (#208)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
GPQA Diamond	—	52.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	5.7%
LMArena Expert	1384	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Qwen3-4B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
LMArena Non-English	1302	—
LMArena Chinese	1366	—
LMArena Russian	1285	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Qwen3-4B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Qwen3-4B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
LMArena Longer Query	1324	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Qwen3-4B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3-4B
LMArena Text	1320	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3-4B?