Darwin-36B-Opus vs Granite 4.2 30B

Darwin-36B-Opus 61

Model card 11, it covers architecture, parameters, context and languages but not intended use, limitations or a knowledge cut-off. Training data 5, the reasoning parent's fine-tune is described without datasets or a cut-off. Last change 20, on 1 November 2026 the publisher added a LICENSE file and a corrected eval_results note to the main repository and edited the POCKET-35B-GGUF card, read as this run reads card edits on other open-weight listings (Muse Glimmer 30B, MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B, Apertus v1.5 8B). The weights date from 23 April and the GGUF build from 22 July. Responsiveness 20, the publisher answered 8 of the 13 discussions, and two of the rest are its own posts. Version policy 5, a first release whose weights were replaced twice in its first day with commit titles but no card note. File health 0, the card's head counts and base still disagree with the files, and the generation config drops the base's end-of-turn stop token. 11 + 5 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 0 = 61.

Granite 4.2 30B 87

Model card 17, Intended use (best for), limitations (ethical considerations and limitations), architecture, parameters (30B), context length (128K native) and 12 tested languages are on the card. Training data 20, IBM's disclosure file for the 30B lists the datasets used in pre-training and post-training as machine-readable metadata, and the card describes the three training stages. Last change 15, the last commit to the repository was on 4 September 2026, 67 days before this check. Responsiveness 20, Of the 4 discussions that aren't pull requests (28 August to 3 November 2026), 3 have a reply from an ibm-granite member. Version policy 5, Granite 4.1 30B stays in its own repository and 4.2 came out in new ones. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, the 131,072-token context and the thinking switch. 17 + 20 + 15 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 87.

Darwin-36B-Opus 70

Chat template 20, Qwen3.6's Jinja template in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, the format is only in the template and the card says nothing about tools. Trained tool calling 20, inherited from the base that was trained for it, with several calls in one turn in the template, though the publisher neither claims nor tests it. Structured output 0. Reasoning control 10, the template turns thinking off per request and the card shows where the reasoning comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens.

Granite 4.2 30B 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository, with roles, tools, tool responses, the thinking switch and low effort. Tool-calling format 25, the card has tool-calling sections for vLLM and SGLang, declares tools with OpenAI's function schema and names the parser to use, qwen3_coder, which both runtimes ship in the released versions read. Trained tool calling 20, the template loops over every entry in an assistant turn's tool_calls, so it renders several calls in one turn, and the card names tool calling and agentic workflows as what it's best for. Structured output 0, the card doesn't document JSON or JSON Schema output or how to ask for it. Reasoning control 10, the card documents thinking on by default, non-thinking and low-effort modes per request through the template (enable_thinking and low_effort), with the reasoning returned apart from the answer. Context 10, 131,072 tokens natively per the card and config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Darwin-36B-Opus 80

Memory 20, the publisher's Q4_K_M GGUF is 21.2 GB and needs about 25.4 GB with the fifth added, so 32 GB. Runtimes 20, the text-only Qwen3.5 MoE class runs in released vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp, while Ollama's and LM Studio's entries are the base's, not this model's. Builds 15, FINAL-Bench's POCKET-35B-GGUF has it at four precisions. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added, with a LICENSE file since 1 November 2026, and Apache 2.0 on the base Qwen3.6-35B-A3B too. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, no provider or API serves it.

Granite 4.2 30B 90

Memory 25, IBM's own 4-bit MLX build granite-4.2-30b-q4-mlx is 16.47 GB, and 16.47 GB × 1.2 = 19.8 GB, which fits 24 GB but not 16 GB. Its Q4_0 GGUF is 16.58 GB and Ollama's library build granite4.2:30b 18 GB, the same band. Runtimes 25, Released versions run the granite architecture in llama.cpp (granite, b12242), vLLM (GraniteForCausalLM in the v0.33.0 registry), SGLang (granite.py at v0.5.23), Transformers (v5.22.2) and Ollama (its own granite4.2 library entry, 30b tag). Builds 15, IBM publishes FP8, MXFP4 and NVFP4 safetensors builds, a GGUF repository with Q4_0 to Q8_0 and BF16 files, and 4-bit, 8-bit and BF16 MLX builds, so quantised builds at two precisions or more. Terms 15, Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence, with no use policy or other terms added on the card. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the BF16, FP8, MXFP4, NVFP4, GGUF and MLX repositories, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps one inference provider (DeepInfra, live), short of the two the line needs. 25 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 90.