Model comparison

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct vs Phi-4

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 12 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct IBM

32.6

Rank #243 Confirmed

Phi-4 Microsoft

30.9

Rank #269 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 2b Instruct scores higher in 2 categories and Phi-4 in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads 30.6 to 19.6.

Side by side

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct and Phi-4 specifications
Granite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
ProviderIBMMicrosoft
Noometry Index32.630.9
Released—2024-12-11
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—128K
Max output—4K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.07
Output $ / M tokens—$0.14
Results tracked1237

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 32.9 (#255), Phi-4: 33.8 (#237)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Coding11491231
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.5%
LiveBench Coding—30.7%
BigCodeBench Complete—55.4%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: —, Phi-4: 22.6 (#120)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—28.8%
BALROG—11.6%

Reasoning Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 21.0 (#206), Phi-4: 17.0 (#287)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Hard Prompts11381220
Chess Puzzles—1%
LiveBench Reasoning—47.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis—45.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index—130.43
LiveBench—41.6%

Math Granite 3.1 2b Instruct leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.6 (#206), Phi-4: 19.6 (#279)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Math11591246
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—13.8%
LiveBench Math—42%
MATH Level 5—64.9%

Knowledge Phi-4 leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 30.3 (#223), Phi-4: 32.5 (#204)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Expert11311203
GPQA Diamond—56.1%
Confabulations—29.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—3.7%
MMLU—84.8%

Multilingual Phi-4 leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 29.2 (#264), Phi-4: 37.4 (#232)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Non-English10681197
LMArena Chinese11381211
LMArena Russian10631209
LMArena French—1223
LMArena German—1222
LMArena Japanese—1158
LMArena Korean—1151
LMArena Spanish—1234

Instruction Following Phi-4 leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 58.0 (#259), Phi-4: 60.6 (#246)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Instruction Following11161201
LiveBench Instruction Following—58.4%

Long Context Phi-4 leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 35.0 (#239), Phi-4: 36.9 (#221)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Longer Query11551217

Writing & Preference Phi-4 leads

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct: 34.3 (#269), Phi-4: 40.7 (#239)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 2b InstructPhi-4
LMArena Text11271217
LMArena Creative Writing11161182
LMArena Multi-Turn10991206
Short-Story Creative Writing—62.6%
LiveBench Language—25.6%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.1 2b Instruct better than Phi-4?

Granite 3.1 2b Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 32.6 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.1 2b Instruct or Phi-4 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (32.9 vs 33.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 2b Instruct and Phi-4 share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 2b Instruct has 12 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 has 37.

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