# Granite 4.2 30b vs Mercury 2

> Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-mercury-2
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 30b scores higher in 7 categories and Mercury 2 in 0 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 30b leads 40.4 to 33.2.
- Granite 4.2 30b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 38.8 |
| Rank | 126 | 167 |
| Context | — | 128K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.25 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.75 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 30b: 40.4 (#127)
- Mercury 2: 33.2 (#250)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1394 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1170 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 30b: 26.7 (#114)
- Mercury 2: 23.0 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1375 | 1362 |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 30b: 38.5 (#134)
- Mercury 2: 35.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1405 | 1358 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 30b: 47.4 (#146)
- Mercury 2: 46.8 (#153)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1340 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1415 | 1416 |
| LMArena Russian | 1342 | 1303 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 30b: 71.3 (#150)
- Mercury 2: 70.4 (#161)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1346 | 1328 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 30b: 41.4 (#135)
- Mercury 2: 40.4 (#149)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1359 | 1329 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 30b: 54.3 (#147)
- Mercury 2: 54.0 (#151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 30b | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1363 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1294 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1340 | 1358 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 30b better than Mercury 2?

Granite 4.2 30b is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.2 30b or Mercury 2 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 30b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 30b and Mercury 2 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 30b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.