# Granite 3.0 2b Instruct vs Qwen3.5-Flash

> Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-0-2b-instruct-vs-qwen3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 57.9 to 29.6.
- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.8 | 42.5 |
| Rank | 286 | 112 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 28.3 (#316)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1090 | 1412 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1244 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 20.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 221.8 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: —
- Qwen3.5-Flash: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 20.5 (#235)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1073 | 1403 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
| DTBench | — | 82.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.98 |

## Math

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.2 (#217)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1117 | 1407 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.0 (#241)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1064 | 1407 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 82.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 27.0 (#278)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1033 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1070 | 1446 |
| LMArena Russian | 1045 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | — | 1412 |
| LMArena German | — | 1390 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1368 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1344 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1400 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 53.9 (#284)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1056 | 1374 |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 32.5 (#268)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1070 | 1392 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.0 2b Instruct: 29.6 (#292)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.0 2b Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1080 | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1046 | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1053 | 1393 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.0 2b Instruct or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

Qwen3.5-Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.2 versus 28.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.0 2b Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.0 2b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.