Granite 4.2 30B vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 30B by IBM or Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral? 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
Granite 4.2 30B scores 1.4 points higher (12.7 vs 11.3) but costs 2.6× as much to run the benchmark ($111 vs $42.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). Pick Granite 4.2 30B when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning).
| Metric | Granite 4.2 30B | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 12.7 | 11.3 | −11.0% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 11.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $110.83 | $42.50 | −61.7% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 61.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 51.51s | 14.77s | −71.3% Mistral Small 4 (Reas… is 71.3% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.16 / $0.65 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Granite 4.2 30B: 11.0% less intelligence, 61.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.3% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 30B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Granite 4.2 30BMistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/mistral-small-4 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-30b/mistral-small-4?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill