Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 8B

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 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #237 Confirmed

Summary

The widest gap is in reasoning, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 25.5 to 16.1.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 8B specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.0	33.3
Released	—	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	131K
Max output	118K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.70
Results tracked	11	11

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	—	22.6%
LMArena Coding	1379	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	—	5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1327	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	136.17

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	56.1%

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	—	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1380	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173), Qwen3 8B: —

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

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1298	—

Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1323	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183), Qwen3 8B: —

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3 8B?

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 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 33.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 8B share?

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