AI model comparison
Solar Mini 4 vs Granite 4.2 8B
Side by side comparison of Solar Mini 4 and Granite 4.2 8B on pricing, benchmark scores, context window, and more.
Solar Mini 4 is Upstage's compact, cost-efficient language model, a 35B-parameter mixture-of-experts with 3B active parameters and a 524K context window.
- Input / 1M
- $0.05
- Output / 1M
- $0.20
- Context
- 524K
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
- $0.15
- Context
- 131K
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At a glance
Quick verdict
How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.
Lower price
Granite 4.2 8B
1.0x cheaper for a typical chat
Higher intelligence score
Not available
Not enough benchmark data
Larger context window
Solar Mini 4
524K vs 131K tokens
Newer release
Solar Mini 4
Released September 23, 2026
Benchmarks
Benchmark scores
Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.
Intelligence index
Granite 4.2 8B5.1Coding index
Granite 4.2 8B22.4Agentic index
Granite 4.2 8B1.3Pricing
Solar Mini 4 vs Granite 4.2 8B API pricing
Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Input tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.05 | $0.06 |
| Output tokensPer 1M tokens | $0.20 | $0.15 |
| Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens | $0.01 | $0.02 |
| 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$0.19Coding task
30K in, 4K out
Granite 4.2 8B$2.40$1.05 cachedLong document summary
150K in, 2K out
Granite 4.2 8B$9.30$2.55 cachedSpecs
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 | |
|---|---|---|
| Context window | 524K tokens | 131K tokens |
| Max output | 131K tokens | 118K tokens |
| Input types | Text | Text |
| Output types | Text | Text |
| Reasoning effort levels | Max, Extra high, High, Medium, Low, Minimal, None | High, Low, None |
| Default reasoning effort | Medium | High |
| Release date | September 23, 2026 | August 31, 2026 |
Features
Supported features
API features available for each model.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Tool calling | Supported | Supported |
| Structured outputs | Supported | Supported |
| JSON mode | Supported | Supported |
| Reasoning | Supported | Supported |
| Temperature | Supported | Supported |
| Stop sequences | Not supported | Supported |
| Deterministic seed | Not supported | 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.
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- Solar Mini 4 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731
- Solar Mini 4 vs Hy3
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- Solar Mini 4 vs Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor
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- Solar Mini 4 vs Mistral Nemo
- Solar Mini 4 vs gpt-oss-20b
- Solar Mini 4 vs Ling 3.1 Flash
- Solar Mini 4 vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Granite 4.2 8BView full model details- Granite 4.2 8B vs Muse Glimmer 30B
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Command A+
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Small 4
- Granite 4.2 8B vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
- Granite 4.2 8B vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor
- Granite 4.2 8B vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423
- Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.7 Flash
Our take
Granite 4.2 8B is 1.0x cheaper for a typical chat. Solar Mini 4 has the larger context window (524K 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 Solar Mini 4 or Granite 4.2 8B 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 $0.15 per 1M output tokens, while Solar Mini 4 costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens.
Which has a bigger context window, Solar Mini 4 or Granite 4.2 8B?
Solar Mini 4 supports up to 524K tokens of context, compared with 131K for Granite 4.2 8B.
Can I use Solar Mini 4 and Granite 4.2 8B at the same time?
Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see Solar Mini 4 and Granite 4.2 8B answer side by side and keep the better response.
Why choose? Ask both.
Send one prompt to Solar Mini 4 and Granite 4.2 8B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.