# Granite 4.2 3b vs Qwen Plus

> Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-qwen-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 3b scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen Plus in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Granite 4.2 3b leads 35.6 to 27.4.
- Granite 4.2 3b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.0 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 163 | 204 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | — | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.4 (#146)
- Qwen Plus: 38.3 (#163)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1363 | 1328 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 3b: 25.0 (#136)
- Qwen Plus: 27.6 (#101)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1308 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 3b: —
- Qwen Plus: 22.0 (#266)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 17.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1326 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 3b: 35.6 (#169)
- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#245)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1313 | 1328 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 48.1% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 3b: 42.4 (#193)
- Qwen Plus: 45.3 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1268 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1268 | 1347 |
| LMArena Russian | 1249 | 1323 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1251 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 3b: 67.2 (#195)
- Qwen Plus: 69.0 (#176)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1271 | 1303 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 3b: 39.3 (#179)
- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#153)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1293 | 1325 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 3b: 47.9 (#202)
- Qwen Plus: 52.4 (#171)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3b | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1295 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1215 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1293 | 1336 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 3b better than Qwen Plus?

Granite 4.2 3b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Granite 4.2 3b or Qwen Plus better for coding?

Granite 4.2 3b scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.4 versus 38.3 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 3b and Qwen Plus share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 3b has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.