Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.5-9B

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.0

Rank #143 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #235 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 37.7.
Both cost about the same: $0.06 input and $0.25 output per million tokens.
Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.0	33.3
Released	—	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	118K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.15
Results tracked	11	10

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1379	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	139.45

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
LMArena Expert	1380	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1299	—
LMArena Chinese	1361	—
LMArena Russian	1283	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1323	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1319	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1238	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1299	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-9B lists at $0.10 and $0.15.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 35.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.5-9B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.