Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next scores 30.7 points higher (39.8 vs 9.1) but costs 24× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $14.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 39.8 | +337.4% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 4.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $362.72 | +2332.7% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 24× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.30s | 50.57s | +43.3% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 43.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Granite 4.2 3B: 337.4% more intelligence, 2332.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 43.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Granite 4.2 3BQwen3.8-Flash-NextToday'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-4-2-3b/qwen3-8-flash-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/qwen3-8-flash-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill