Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 Coder Next

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 34.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Qwen3 Coder Next

Alibaba (Qwen)

34.3

Rank #232 Reported

Summary

The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 40.5 to 36.3.
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.12 / $0.80 for Qwen3 Coder Next.
Qwen3 Coder Next accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 Coder Next specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
Provider	IBM	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.5	34.3
Released	—	2026-02-02
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	118K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.12
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.80
Results tracked	11	3

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Qwen3 Coder Next: 36.3 (#210)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
SciCode	—	32.3%
WeirdML	—	34.4%
LMArena Coding	1380	—

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Qwen3 Coder Next: 22.4 (#196)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
CritPt	—	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	—

Knowledge Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Expert	1384	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

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

Instruction Following Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	—

Long Context Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Longer Query	1324	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3 Coder Next?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 34.3 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder Next?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder Next lists at $0.12 and $0.80.

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

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 36.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3 Coder Next does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

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

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Coder Next has 3.