Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 33.7 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 131K |
| Max output | 118K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Granite 4.0 Micro leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 5% |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 56.1% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 56.8% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| WildBench | 67% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3 8B?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 8B does, with 131K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Qwen3 8B share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.