Model comparison

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct IBM

31.8

Rank #256 Confirmed

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) Moonshot AI

40.9

Rank #134 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads 62.5 to 35.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and 59.1% for Kimi K2 (Jul 2025).

Side by side

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) specifications
Granite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
ProviderIBMMoonshot AI
Noometry Index31.840.9
Released—2025-07-12
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—262K
Max output—262K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.57
Output $ / M tokens—$2.30
Results tracked1342

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.9 (#232), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 43.1 (#83)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Coding11861399
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—63.4%
Aider Polyglot—59.1%
GSO—4.9%
WeirdML—42.8%
ALE-Bench—597.5

Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 23.9 (#113), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.2 (#59)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard27.1%59.1%
Terminal-Bench—35.7%
METR Time Horizons—59.2%

Reasoning Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 21.2 (#204), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 22.7 (#173)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Hard Prompts11461384
SimpleBench—26.3%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—64.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index—146.02
ForecastBench—60.2

Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.4 (#210), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 40.1 (#81)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Math11521396
Omni-MATH—65.4%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—21.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.6 (#218), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 36.9 (#153)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Expert11421363
MMLU-Pro—81.9%
Confabulations—20.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—17.9%
GPQA (HELM)—65.3%

Multilingual Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#255), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.8 (#125)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Non-English10991372
LMArena Chinese11451416
LMArena Russian10921384
LMArena French—1379
LMArena German—1386
LMArena Japanese—1349
LMArena Korean—1324
LMArena Spanish—1383

Instruction Following Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.9 (#254), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.3 (#151)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Instruction Following11311347
IFEval—85%

Long Context Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#236), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#140)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Longer Query11621353
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—17.6%

Writing & Preference Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.7 (#261), Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.5 (#76)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGranite 3.1 8b InstructKimi K2 (Jul 2025)
LMArena Text11501380
LMArena Creative Writing11291349
LMArena Multi-Turn11081371
Short-Story Creative Writing—85.6%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1666
WildBench—86.2%

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 31.8 on the Noometry Index.

Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better for coding?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.1 versus 33.9 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42.

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