# Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Qwen3 32B

> Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-3-1-8b-instruct-vs-qwen3-32b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 32B in 8 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 32B leads 52.9 to 35.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and 48.7% for Qwen3 32B.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 32.4 | 39.2 |
| Rank | 258 | 172 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.70 |
| Output $/M | — | $2.80 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233)
- Qwen3 32B: 37.7 (#190)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | 1358 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 40% |
| SciCode | — | 35.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120)
- Qwen3 32B: 32.6 (#62)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 48.7% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207)
- Qwen3 32B: 20.2 (#241)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1145 | 1334 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 54.9% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 67.5% |
| LMCA | — | 17.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 138.51 |

## Math

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209)
- Qwen3 32B: 39.7 (#99)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1152 | 1399 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 66.9% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220)
- Qwen3 32B: 40.0 (#125)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | 1362 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 65.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.9% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260)
- Qwen3 32B: 45.6 (#167)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | 1317 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | 1357 |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | 1311 |
| LMArena German | — | 1341 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259)
- Qwen3 32B: 68.9 (#179)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | 1305 |

## Long Context

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241)
- Qwen3 32B: 43.8 (#87)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | 1327 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 74.2% |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266)
- Qwen3 32B: 52.9 (#163)

| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Qwen3 32B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | 1340 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | 1297 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | 1331 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Qwen3 32B?

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Qwen3 32B better for coding?

Qwen3 32B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Qwen3 32B share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 32B has 26.