# Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.5-Flash

> Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-Flash in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 57.9 to 49.6.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.40 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
- Qwen3.5-Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Granite 4.2 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.5 | 42.5 |
| Rank | 148 | 112 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $0.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1412 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1244 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 221.8 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Qwen3.5-Flash: —

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1329 | 1403 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
| DTBench | — | 82.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.98 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1407 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1384 | 1407 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 82.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1302 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1366 | 1446 |
| LMArena Russian | 1285 | 1379 |
| LMArena French | — | 1412 |
| LMArena German | — | 1390 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1368 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1344 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1400 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1301 | 1374 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1392 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1320 | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1236 | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1301 | 1393 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-Flash?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-Flash lists at $0.10 and $0.40.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.