# Granite 4.2 8B vs Mercury 2

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-mercury-2
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 3 categories and Mercury 2 in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 39.9 to 33.2.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $0.75 for Mercury 2.
- Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
- Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 38.8 |
| Rank | 143 | 167 |
| Context | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.25 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $0.75 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138)
- Mercury 2: 33.2 (#250)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1391 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1170 |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 785.58 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130)
- Mercury 2: 23.0 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | 1362 |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144)
- Mercury 2: 35.6 (#170)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | 1358 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.3% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173)
- Mercury 2: 46.8 (#153)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1416 |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | 1303 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183)
- Mercury 2: 70.4 (#161)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | 1328 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154)
- Mercury 2: 40.4 (#149)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | 1329 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183)
- Mercury 2: 54.0 (#151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | 1358 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Mercury 2?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 38.8 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Mercury 2?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Mercury 2 lists at $0.25 and $0.75.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Mercury 2 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Mercury 2 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.