# Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Granite 4.2 30b

> Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-vs-granite-4-2-30b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 5 categories and Granite 4.2 30b in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 60.9 to 53.8.
- Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 40.8 | 41.8 |
| Rank | 144 | 130 |
| Context | 1.05M | — |
| Input $/M | $0.25 | — |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.8 (#188)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 41.0 (#126)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1400 | 1396 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1256 | — |
| SciCode | 41.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 52.2% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 797.73 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 30.2 (#79)
- Granite 4.2 30b: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| DeepResearch Bench | 37.3% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.9 (#186)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 27.8 (#112)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1374 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 8.2% | — |
| CritPt | 1.1% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 25% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.3% | — |
| DTBench | 76.8% | — |
| LMCA | 35% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.47 | — |
| ForecastBench | 54.4 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 40.7 (#90)
- Granite 4.2 30b: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 27.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1428 | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.9 (#104)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 39.1 (#138)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1398 | 1406 |
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% | — |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 8.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 8.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.4 (#60)
- Granite 4.2 30b: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1240 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.3 (#86)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 47.3 (#151)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1411 | 1340 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | 1414 |
| LMArena Russian | 1420 | 1343 |
| LMArena French | 1424 | — |
| LMArena German | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1413 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1421 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.7 (#131)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 71.2 (#155)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1377 | 1347 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#122)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#140)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1394 | 1359 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 60.9 (#94)
- Granite 4.2 30b: 53.8 (#156)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Granite 4.2 30b |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1416 | 1361 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | 1288 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1417 | 1339 |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Granite 4.2 30b?

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.8 to 40.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Granite 4.2 30b better for coding?

Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.0 versus 37.8 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Granite 4.2 30b share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.2 30b has 11.