Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Qwen3 Coder 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 Coder Next scores 0.1 points higher (9.2 vs 9.1) but costs 27× as much to run the benchmark ($405 vs $14.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 Coder Next when you need intelligence above 9.1, and Granite 4.2 3B when 9.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 9.2 | +1.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 1.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $405.10 | +2617.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 27× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.30s | 6.44s | −81.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 81.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Granite 4.2 3B: 1.1% more intelligence, 2617.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 81.8% faster 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 Coder 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 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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