# Claude Opus 5.5 vs Granite 3.1 8b Instruct

> Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-granite-3-1-8b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 5.5 leads 91.8 to 33.0.
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 68.6 | 32.4 |
| Rank | 3 | 258 |
| Context | 1M | — |
| Input $/M | $4 | — |
| Output $/M | $20 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Opus 5.5: 71.9 (#3)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1547 | 1186 |
| FrontierCode | 54.6% | — |
| CursorBench | 57.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1813 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 62.3% | — |
| SciCode | 66.9% | — |
| MirrorCode | 77.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,147 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Opus 5.5: 45.3 (#15)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 73.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 27.1% |
| GDP.pdf | 30.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 9,235 | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Opus 5.5: 80.2 (#3)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1535 | 1145 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 93.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 88.5% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 98.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.7% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 71.4% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 71% | — |
| DTBench | 98.9% | — |
| LMCA | 68.2% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 167.33 | — |

## Math

- Claude Opus 5.5: 91.8 (#3)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1506 | 1152 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 91.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 95% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Claude Opus 5.5: 66.4 (#10)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1547 | 1142 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.6% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 72.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Claude Opus 5.5: 57.8 (#1)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1321 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 51.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 83.3% | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Opus 5.5: 59.1 (#2)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1507 | 1099 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1588 | 1145 |
| LMArena Russian | 1520 | 1092 |
| LMArena French | 1514 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1507 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Opus 5.5: 80.0 (#3)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1537 | 1131 |

## Long Context

- Claude Opus 5.5: 47.1 (#19)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1532 | 1162 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Opus 5.5: 78.2 (#3)
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1515 | 1150 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1533 | 1129 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1499 | 1108 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2050 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Granite 3.1 8b Instruct?

Claude Opus 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 68.6 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 71.9 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5.5 and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5.5 has 44 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13.