# Granite 4.0 Micro vs Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)

> Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 38× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-0-micro-vs-grok-4-20
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 0 categories and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.8 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 92.2% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | xAI |
| Noometry Index | 28.8 | 48.5 |
| Rank | 312 | 48 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | $1.25 |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | $2.50 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 41.8 (#104)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1374 |
| WeirdML | — | 52.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1458 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 1,150 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.3 (#43)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 57.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 18% |
| LMArena Search | — | 1189 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,663 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.2 (#30)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 24% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 65.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 75% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 85.4% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 89.5% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 63.8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1451 |
| DTBench | — | 90.1% |
| LMCA | — | 38.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 152.01 |
| ForecastBench | — | 61.4 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 92.2% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 44.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 14% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1455 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 89.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 30.2% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1440 |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.2 (#88)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1263 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | — | 0% |
| LMArena Document | — | 1416 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.7 (#38)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1440 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1481 |
| LMArena French | — | 1477 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1450 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1457 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1442 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 75.0 (#79)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1420 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.4 (#33)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 22.2% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 11.9% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1436 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212)
- Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.9 (#42)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1451 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1439 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1574 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1456 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.5 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 38× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46.