AI model comparison
Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Pricing, context window, benchmarks, and features compared side by side. Or skip the guesswork and send one prompt to both.
Granite 4.2 8B is a dense reasoning model from IBM. It is suited for mathematics, code generation, multilingual dialogue, and agentic workflows that need multi-step reasoning.
- Input / 1M
- $0.06
- Output / 1M
- $0.25
- Context
- 131K
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct is a 30.5B parameter Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model with 128 experts (8 active per forward pass), designed for advanced code generation, repository-scale understanding, and agentic tool use.
- Input / 1M
- $0.07
- Output / 1M
- $0.28
- Context
- 262K
At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Granite 4.2 8B
1.1x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Granite 4.2 8B
11.1 vs 9.6 on Artificial Analysis
Larger context window
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
262K vs 131K tokens
Newer release
Granite 4.2 8B
Released August 31, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Granite 4.2 8B11.1Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct9.6Coding index
Granite 4.2 8B22.4Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructNot availableAgentic index
Granite 4.2 8B1.3Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructNot availablePricing
Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.06 | $0.07 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.25 | $0.28 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.02 | Not available |
| Cache writePer 1M tokens | Not available | Not available |
What it costs in practice
Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.
Chat message
2K in, 500 out
Granite 4.2 8B$0.25Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$0.28Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Granite 4.2 8B$2.80$1.45 cachedQwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$3.22Long document summary
150K in, 2K out
Granite 4.2 8B$9.50$2.75 cachedQwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct$11.06Specs
Context window and capabilities
How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 131K tokens | 262K tokens |
| Max output | 118K tokens | 236K tokens |
| Input types | Text | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | High, Low, None | Not available |
| Default reasoning effort | High | Not available |
| Release date | August 31, 2026 | July 31, 2025 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Not supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Supported | Not supported |
| Verbosity control | Not supported | Not supported |
Keep exploring
More on these models
Other head-to-heads, the full model page, and the alternatives list for each model.
Granite 4.2 8BView full model details- Granite 4.2 8B vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Granite 4.2 8B vs gpt-oss-120b
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Gemma 4 31B
- Granite 4.2 8B vs gpt-oss-20b
- Granite 4.2 8B vs GPT-5 Nano
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Mercury 2.5
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3 32B
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructView full model details- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs gpt-oss-120b
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3.5-9B
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 Coder Next
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 32B
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 14B
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Our take
Granite 4.2 8B is 1.1x cheaper for a typical chat. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (11.1 vs 9.6). Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct has the larger context window (262K vs 131K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct cheaper?
Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Granite 4.2 8B costs $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.25 per 1M output tokens, while Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.07 per 1M input tokens and $0.28 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct supports up to 262K tokens of context, compared with 131K for Granite 4.2 8B.
Is Granite 4.2 8B smarter than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Granite 4.2 8B scores 11.1 and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct scores 9.6, putting Granite 4.2 8B ahead. Benchmarks don't capture everything, so the best test is running your own prompts through both.
Can I use Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.