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 2026-09-22.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 Coder Next scores 0.1 points higher (9.2 vs 9.1) but costs 32× as much to run the benchmark ($476 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) | $14.90 | $476.23 | +3096.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 32× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.74s | 6.95s | −40.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 40.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Granite 4.2 3B: 1.1% more intelligence, 3096.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 40.8% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Granite 4.2 3BQwen3 Coder 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-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill