# Granite 4.2 3B vs LFM2.5-2.6B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 3B and LFM2.5-2.6B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-lfm2-5-2-6b
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Granite 4.2 3B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-2.6B only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Granite 4.2 3B leads overall 43 to 39.6.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B and 24.9 for LFM2.5-2.6B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is τ³-bench results in Agentic, with scores of 45.8% and 5.7%.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | LiquidAI |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 128K |
| Overall Score | null | 39.6 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 9 | 7 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: 36.8 (Estimated · #129/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ³-bench results | 45.8% | 5.7% | Granite 4.2 3B |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | 56.9% | LFM2.5-2.6B |
| Claw-Eval | Coming soon | 62.9% | Coming soon |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 68.2% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: 38.8 (Estimated · #121/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | 59.4% | Granite 4.2 3B |
| SciCode | 24.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: 37.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: 24.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: 36.7 (Estimated · #148/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 54.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: 47.6 (#87/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 74.3% | 59.2% | Granite 4.2 3B |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- LFM2.5-2.6B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5-2.6B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 78.3% | 51.9% | Granite 4.2 3B |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 3B or LFM2.5-2.6B?

Granite 4.2 3B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 3B and LFM2.5-2.6B?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 37.7 for Granite 4.2 3B and 24.9 for LFM2.5-2.6B.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 3B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 3B currently has 9 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does LFM2.5-2.6B cover on BenchLM?

LFM2.5-2.6B currently has 7 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [LFM2.5-2.6B vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-lfm2-5-2-6b)
- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [LFM2.5-2.6B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-lfm2-5-2-6b)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 3B profile](/models/granite-4-2-3b)
- [LFM2.5-2.6B profile](/models/lfm2-5-2-6b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)