Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Granite 4.2 3B
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Granite 4.2 3B by IBM? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) scores 19.0 points higher (28.1 vs 9.1) but costs 82× as much to run the benchmark ($1218 vs $14.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Granite 4.2 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 9.1 | −67.6% Granite 4.2 3B is 67.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $14.91 | −98.8% Granite 4.2 3B is 98.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.01s | 49.42s | +448.5% Granite 4.2 3B is 448.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.03 / $0.12 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Granite 4.2 3B vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 67.6% less intelligence, 98.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 448.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium)Granite 4.2 3BToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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