# Gemma 3 27B vs Granite 4.0 Micro

> Gemma 3 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemma 3 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-granite-4-0-micro
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 4 categories and Granite 4.0 Micro in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemma 3 27B leads 25.4 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.08 / $0.16 for Gemma 3 27B.
- Gemma 3 27B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | IBM |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 277 | 312 |
| Context | 131K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $0.017 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $0.11 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | 2.8% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 20.9% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | 28.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 39.5% |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 30.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena French | 1368 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |
| IFEval | — | 84.9% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Granite 4.0 Micro |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| WildBench | — | 67% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Granite 4.0 Micro?

Gemma 3 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 2.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemma 3 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Granite 4.0 Micro?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Gemma 3 27B lists at $0.08 and $0.16.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemma 3 27B does, with 131K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Granite 4.0 Micro share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.0 Micro has 8.