# Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.8-27B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.8-27B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen3-8-27b
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Qwen3.8-27B leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Qwen3.8-27B has the higher overall point estimate 59.6 to 33.4. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 15.7 for Granite 4.2 8B and 63.4 for Qwen3.8-27B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 73.0%.
- Qwen3.8-27B also has the larger context window at 262K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Alibaba |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 262K |
| Overall Score | 33.4 | 59.6 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 34 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 63.4 (Supported · #20/127)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 73.0% | Qwen3.8-27B |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CoWorkBench | Coming soon | 70.7% | Coming soon |
| JobBench | Coming soon | 33.4% | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | Coming soon | 42.9% | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | Coming soon | 84.3% | Coming soon |
| WebArena-Verified | Coming soon | 64.8% | Coming soon |
| AndroidWorld | Coming soon | 81.9% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 58.4% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 46.6 (Supported · #51/150)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | 61.7% | Qwen3.8-27B |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 73.0% | Qwen3.8-27B |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | 90.3% | Qwen3.8-27B |
| SciCode | 36.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 42.3% | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 42.2% | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | Coming soon | 82.6% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 84.0% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 86.0% | Coming soon |
| Bug Hunt Bench | Coming soon | 15.0 fixes | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 82.2 (#9/28)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 84.4 (#13/54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MathVision | Coming soon | 90.0% | Coming soon |
| MathVision w/ Python | Coming soon | 94.6% | Coming soon |
| BabyVision | Coming soon | 65.7% | Coming soon |
| BabyVision w/ Python | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |
| Vision2Web | Coming soon | 62.9% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 83.7% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |
| OmniDocBench 1.5 | Coming soon | 91.1% | Coming soon |
| RealWorldQA | Coming soon | 85.9% | Coming soon |
| ERQA | Coming soon | 65.5% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Qwen3.8-27B
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 51.3 (Supported · #76/184)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | 89.2% | Qwen3.8-27B |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 89.2% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 30.8% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 30.8% | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 88.9% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 84.3% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Tie
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: 86.9 (#40/146)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | 79.5% | Qwen3.8-27B |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Qwen3.8-27B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3.8-27B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.8-27B?

Qwen3.8-27B has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 8B and Qwen3.8-27B?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 15.7 for Granite 4.2 8B and 63.4 for Qwen3.8-27B.

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

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

### How many benchmarks does Qwen3.8-27B cover on BenchLM?

Qwen3.8-27B currently has 34 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Qwen3.8-27B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-qwen3-8-27b)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Qwen3.8-27B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-qwen3-8-27b)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [Qwen3.8-27B profile](/models/qwen3-8-27b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)