Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 5 vs Granite 3.0 8b Instruct

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.5 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 5 Anthropic

54.5

Rank #26 Confirmed

Granite 3.0 8b Instruct IBM

31.1

Rank #266 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher in 8 categories and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Claude Sonnet 5 leads 69.4 to 31.2.
  • Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 5 and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct specifications
Claude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
ProviderAnthropicIBM
Noometry Index54.531.1
Released2026-06-29—
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M—
Max output128K—
Input $ / M tokens$2—
Output $ / M tokens$10—
Results tracked5114

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Category by category

Coding Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.5 (#20), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#297)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Coding14831113
DeepSWE53.8%—
FrontierCode42.7%—
CursorBench34.1%—
LMArena WebDev1540—
SciCode53.6%—
GSO37.3%—
WeirdML68.8%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—29.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—35.4%
ALE-Bench1,463—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.7 (#16), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
APEX-Agents54.5%—
GBAEval65.3%—
LMArena Search1194—
Vending-Bench 26,378—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 48.2 (#37), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 20.0 (#227)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Hard Prompts14611092
SimpleBench60.6%—
NYT Connections (extended)75.1%—
CritPt16.9%—
Chess Puzzles35%—
Mystery Game Puzzles35%—
DTBench92.5%—
LMCA50%—
Surface Evolver Bench60%—
Bench to the Future 30.14—
Epoch Capabilities Index156.34—
ForecastBench61.1—

Math Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 66.1 (#21), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 30.3 (#211)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Math14671143
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)65.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 429.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202594.7%—
ProofBench77%—

Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 55.7 (#42), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 29.1 (#233)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Expert14911087
GPQA Diamond90.5%—
SimpleQA Verified33.7%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 5: 42.4 (#26), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Vision1275—
Blueprint-Bench 224.9%—
LMArena Document1466—

Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 54.0 (#55), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 27.4 (#271)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Non-English14311037
LMArena Chinese14751063
LMArena Russian14521060
LMArena French1457—
LMArena German1448—
LMArena Japanese1422—
LMArena Korean1411—
LMArena Spanish1436—

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 76.6 (#39), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 56.2 (#271)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14531088

Long Context Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 44.8 (#53), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 34.0 (#247)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14641122

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5 leads

Claude Sonnet 5: 69.4 (#24), Granite 3.0 8b Instruct: 31.2 (#280)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 5Granite 3.0 8b Instruct
LMArena Text14431096
LMArena Creative Writing14161071
LMArena Multi-Turn14541063
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1794—
EQ-Bench 41236—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 5 better than Granite 3.0 8b Instruct?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.5 to 31.1 on the Noometry Index.

Is Claude Sonnet 5 or Granite 3.0 8b Instruct better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 29.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5 and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Granite 3.0 8b Instruct has 14.

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