# Claude Opus 4.6 vs Granite 4.2 8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Opus 4.6 and Granite 4.2 8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-opus-4-6-vs-granite-4-2-8b
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Claude Opus 4.6 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Claude Opus 4.6 has the higher overall point estimate 62.4 to 33.4. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 52.4 for Claude Opus 4.6 and 86.5 for Granite 4.2 8B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SWE-bench Pro in Coding, with scores of 53.4% and 19.1%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Claude Opus 4.6 also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | IBM |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 128K |
| Overall Score | 62.4 | 33.4 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 36 | 14 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $5.00 / $25.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 45.8 (Supported · #57/127)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 65.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | 83.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 72.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AndroidWorld | 62.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | 70.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | 73.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 66.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 61.85% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | 19.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 36.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 20.6% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 58.1% | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | Coming soon | 52.4% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 46.1 (Supported · #52/150)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.8% | 47.7% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| SWE-bench Verified* | 75.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench Pro | 70.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 53.4% | 19.1% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| SWE-Rebench | 65.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | 84.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 65.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 57.57% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 26.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 30.8% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 20.6% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | Coming soon | 73.2% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 36.1% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 71.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 74.5 (#25/54)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 77.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ERQA | 51.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ScreenSpot Pro | 83.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 64.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 58.8 (Estimated · #52/184)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 91.3% | 64.1% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| GPQA-D | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | 95% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 82% | 74.0% | Claude Opus 4.6 |
| MMLU-Pro (Arcee) | 89.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 40% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HealthBench Hard | 14.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (Text) | 52.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 52.4 (#85/146)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 79.3% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Opus 4.6 public-lane score: 69.1 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.6 | Granite 4.2 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME25 (Arcee) | 99.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 65.965% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 26.829% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 86.7% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | Coming soon | 78.3% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4.6 or Granite 4.2 8B?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Opus 4.6 and Granite 4.2 8B?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 52.4 for Claude Opus 4.6 and 86.5 for Granite 4.2 8B.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Opus 4.6 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Opus 4.6 currently has 36 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 8B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 8B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)](/compare/claude-opus-4-6-vs-claude-opus-4-6-thinking)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Claude Opus 4.6 (Adaptive)](/compare/claude-opus-4-6-thinking-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Claude Opus 4.6 vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/claude-opus-4-6-vs-granite-4-2-30b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)

## Explore More

- [Claude Opus 4.6 profile](/models/claude-opus-4-6)
- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)