DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Granite 4.2 8B

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 48

The cards cover architecture, parameters and context but not intended use, limitations, languages or a cut-off, so 8. Training data is a general description with no cut-off, which caps it at 5. The files changed on 16 and 17 October and DeepSeek's deepseek-recipe 0.2.0 changed the V4.1 prompt encoding on 20 October, inside 30 days (20). None of the 40 most recent questions across both repositories had a DeepSeek reply (0). Every release keeps its own repository and the update names what it replaces (10). File health loses 5 for an open, unanswered pull request saying the September template trails the encoding changes. 8 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 5 = 48.

Granite 4.2 8B 92

Model card 17, Intended use (best for), limitations (ethical considerations and limitations), architecture, parameters (8B), context length (128K native) and 12 tested languages are on the card. Training data 20, IBM's disclosure file for the 8B lists the datasets used in pre-training and post-training as machine-readable metadata, and the card describes the three training stages. Last change 20, the last commit, on 20 October 2026, replaced model.safetensors.index.json (titled "granite-4.2 index file fix"), 21 days before this check. Responsiveness 20, Of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (13 September to 5 November 2026), 4 have a reply from an ibm-granite member. Version policy 5, Granite 4.1 8B 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 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 92.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 60

Memory scores nothing, because the only build is DeepSeek's own at 510.3 GB, about 612 GB with the fifth added, and nobody's runtime library holds a smaller one at 4-bit or better. Four runtimes run it in a released version (5 each), vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23, which maps the V4.1 architecture name onto its V4 model, llama.cpp from b11870 (25 October 2026), which added the deepseek41 architecture and its converter, and Ollama 0.40.14, which builds llama.cpp b11963. Transformers 5.22.1 and LM Studio don't (0 each). The release itself is one quantised build, FP8 with FP4 experts (10). MIT with nothing added earns the full terms line (15), the repositories aren't gated (10), and Hugging Face maps three live inference providers for the update (5). 0 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 60.

Granite 4.2 8B 95

Memory 30, IBM's own 4-bit MLX build granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx is 4.95 GB, and 4.95 GB × 1.2 = 5.9 GB, within 8 GB. Its Q4_0 GGUF is 5.06 GB and Ollama's library build granite4.2:8b (5.3 GB) fits 8 GB too. 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, 8b 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. 30 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 95.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 75

There's no Jinja template in the 17 October repository, only code to run, so the template line gets 10. DeepSeek documents the DSML tool format both ways and ships its own parser in encoding.py and deepseek-recipe, but names no parser in a runtime (10, read as for DeepSeek-V3.2 and V4-Flash-0731), and one block can carry several calls (20). deepseek-recipe documents JSON Schema output via response_format (15). Thinking turns off in chat mode and takes an effort budget from 1 to 100, with reasoning returned in think tags (10). The 1M context was trained in (10).

Granite 4.2 8B 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.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 50

The weights are safetensors only, but 10 comes off because the card's way to build prompts is running encoding.py from the repository, since there's no Jinja template. The files sit in DeepSeek's own organisation with a hash for every file. Nothing is published on safety and there's no guidance for agent use, so those two lines score 0. The security programme earns 5 for the security@deepseek.com reporting address in DeepSeek's site footer, read as for DeepSeek-V3.2, with no security.txt and no public advisories. The MIT licence carries no use policy, threshold or revocation, so licence risk keeps all 15.

Granite 4.2 8B 55

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the ibm-granite organisation, which IBM's Granite docs and the GitHub README link to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, field-of-use limit, threshold or change clause, and the card's licence link resolves. Security programme 5, www.ibm.com/.well-known/security.txt names IBM PSIRT, read for the 3B listing on 4 November 2026 (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 55.