# Granite 3.1 2b Instruct vs Mercury 2

> Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.8 to 32.6 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-1-2b-instruct-vs-mercury-2
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 2b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Mercury 2 in 7 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mercury 2 leads 54.0 to 34.3.
- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 32.6 | 38.8 |
| Rank | 243 | 167 |
| Context | — | 128K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.25 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.75 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 32.9 (#255)
- Mercury 2: 33.2 (#250)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1149 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1170 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 21.0 (#206)
- Mercury 2: 23.0 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1138 | 1362 |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |

## Math

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.6 (#206)
- Mercury 2: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1159 | — |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.3 (#223)
- Mercury 2: 35.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1131 | 1358 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 29.2 (#264)
- Mercury 2: 46.8 (#153)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1068 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1138 | 1416 |
| LMArena Russian | 1063 | 1303 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 58.0 (#259)
- Mercury 2: 70.4 (#161)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1116 | 1328 |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 35.0 (#239)
- Mercury 2: 40.4 (#149)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1155 | 1329 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 34.3 (#269)
- Mercury 2: 54.0 (#151)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 2b Instruct | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1127 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1116 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1099 | 1358 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.1 2b Instruct better than Mercury 2?

Mercury 2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.8 to 32.6 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.1 2b Instruct or Mercury 2 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (32.9 vs 33.2); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 2b Instruct and Mercury 2 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has 12 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.