# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Granite 4.2 8B

> Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 56× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-granite-4-2-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 7 categories and Granite 4.2 8B in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 70.2 to 49.6.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 40.5 |
| Rank | 50 | 148 |
| Context | 1M | 131K |
| Input $/M | $3 | $0.06 |
| Output $/M | $15 | $0.25 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1504 | 1380 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.2% | — |
| DeepSWE | 29.9% | — |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | — |
| SciCode | 46.8% | — |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,327 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28)
- Granite 4.2 8B: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | — |
| APEX-Agents | 43% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | — |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | — |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | — |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | — |
| GBAEval | 48.8% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 18% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1221 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 7,204 | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1484 | 1329 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 86.5% | — |
| CritPt | 3.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 13% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 76.3% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 16% | — |
| DTBench | 89.9% | — |
| LMCA | 46.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.24 | — |
| ForecastBench | 62 | — |

## Math

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49)
- Granite 4.2 8B: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 85.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 45% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1462 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 32.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |

## Knowledge

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1500 | 1384 |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.6% | — |

## Multimodal

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68)
- Granite 4.2 8B: —

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1440 | 1302 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1491 | 1366 |
| LMArena Russian | 1440 | 1285 |
| LMArena French | 1465 | — |
| LMArena German | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1475 | 1301 |

## Long Context

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1479 | 1324 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22)
- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1458 | 1320 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1435 | 1236 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1464 | 1301 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1810 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1207 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Granite 4.2 8B?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 56× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

### Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Granite 4.2 8B better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 40.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Granite 4.2 8B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 8B has 11.