# Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Mercury 2.5

> Mercury 2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-1-8b-instruct-vs-mercury-2-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in math, where Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads 33.0 to 23.3.
- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 32.4 | 33.5 |
| Rank | 258 | 242 |
| Context | — | 260K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.04 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)
- Mercury 2.5: 39.5 (#156)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 38.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 301.65 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)
- Mercury 2.5: 22.4 (#193)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1145 | — |

## Math

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)
- Mercury 2.5: 23.3 (#272)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | — | 3% |
| LMArena Math | 1152 | — |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | — |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | — |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)
- Mercury 2.5: —

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mercury 2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Mercury 2.5?

Mercury 2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Mercury 2.5 better for coding?

Mercury 2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.5 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Mercury 2.5 share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2.5 has 4.