Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3.5-9B
Granite 4.2 30B and Qwen3.5-9B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 60.5 (C). Both do open-weight models you run yourself.
Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 4969 open weights comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 24 GB card
Ahead on
- Reach, 90 against 85
- Agent interface, 85 against 70
- Documentation and upkeep, 87 against 34
Watch for
No safety results published for it
Best for Agents that want a small multimodal tool-calling model on a laptop or a 16 GB GPU, under a plain licence
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No quantised build from Qwen itself
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Documentation and upkeep Granite 4.2 30B +53
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.
Qwen3.5-9B 34
Model card 14, it covers intended use, architecture, parameters, context and 201 languages but gives no limitations and no knowledge cut-off. Training data 5, a general line about trillions of multimodal tokens with no cut-off. Last change 5, the files and card last changed on 2 March 2026 (c202236), 247 days before 4 November, within a year. Responsiveness 0, no Qwen member replied in any of the 40 most recent of the 45 discussions that aren't pull requests (2 March to 29 September 2026). Version policy 5, a first release that was never replaced in place, with no dated notes across generations. File health 5, two reports about the files and card (15 and 51) are still open with no reply. 14 + 5 + 5 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 34. The card's highlights mention sparse Mixture-of-Experts for the series while this 9B is dense, but its own overview matches config.json, so it's not counted as a contradiction.
Agent interface Granite 4.2 30B +15
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.
Qwen3.5-9B 70
Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, the card names the qwen3_coder parser for vLLM and SGLang but leaves the declaration and return format to the template, and Qwen's own function-calling guide still describes Qwen3's Hermes format. Trained tool calling 20, the template renders several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, nothing documents asking the weights for JSON. Reasoning control 10, thinking turns off per request with enable_thinking false and the reasoning comes back in think tags that the qwen3 parser splits out. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native.
Reach Granite 4.2 30B +5
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.
Qwen3.5-9B 85
Memory 30, Qwen publishes no quantised 9B, so the smallest 4-bit build from a runtime's own library is Ollama's qwen3.5:9b at 6.6 GB, about 7.9 GB with the fifth added, well under 16 GB. Runtimes 25, the cap, with vLLM listed in its stable docs, Transformers at released tags, llama.cpp, Ollama's library, LM Studio's own catalogue and SGLang all running the architecture. Builds 0, Qwen's FP8 and GPTQ repositories cover only the 27B and larger Qwen3.5 models, so every quantisation of the 9B is someone else's. Terms 15, plain Apache 2.0. Download 10, the repository isn't gated. Hosted 5, Together, Featherless AI, OVHcloud and DeepInfra are live for it on its Hugging Face page. 30 + 25 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 85.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.5-9B | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 90 | 85 | Granite 4.2 30B +5 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 55 | even |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 70 | Granite 4.2 30B +15 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 87 | 34 | Granite 4.2 30B +53 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 61/100 | C 60.5/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-04 | 2026-03-02 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (4) |
Verdicts
Granite 4.2 30B
IBM's largest reasoning cousin, with the same strengths as the 3B. It runs in every runtime we count from IBM's own builds on a 24 GB card, is signed, plain Apache 2.0, and comes with a disclosure of its training data. No safety results are published and structured output isn't documented.
Qwen3.5-9B
A small dense vision-language model with trained tool calling, thinking that turns off per request and a 262,144-token context. Ollama's 4-bit build is 6.6 GB and the BF16 files 19.3 GB, and every major runtime loads it. The files haven't changed since 2 March 2026, Qwen answered none of the 40 latest discussions, and no safety results are published.
Before you call either
Granite 4.2 30B
- Start it with
ollama run granite4.2:30b, orllama-server -hf ibm-granite/granite-4.2-30b-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja - With vLLM 0.32.0 or later leave out
--reasoning-parser-plugin, since the parser is built in, and use--tool-call-parser qwen3_coder - Thinking is on by default. Pass
enable_thinkingfalse to turn it off orlow_efforttrue for short reasoning - The context is 131,072 tokens. The card's 512K extension isn't documented
- Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
- IBM recommends Granite Guardian beside it to flag risky inputs and outputs
Qwen3.5-9B
- Smallest start is
ollama run qwen3.5:9b(6.6 GB, q4_k_m) - On vLLM run
vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3.5-9B --port 8000 --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, or tool calls come back as text - Tool calls use the XML style
<tool_call><function=name><parameter=x>, not Hermes JSON, so use the qwen3_coder parser and not hermes - Thinking is on by default; pass
chat_template_kwargswithenable_thinkingfalse for short tasks, since/nothinkisn't supported - There's no generation_config.json, so pass sampling yourself, temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 20, presence_penalty 1.5 when thinking, or 0.7, 0.8, 20, 1.5 without
- Keep at least 128K of context when thinking, and turn on YaRN only beyond 262,144 tokens
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite 4.2 30B or Qwen3.5-9B?
Granite 4.2 30B and Qwen3.5-9B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 60.5 (C).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-qwen3-5-9b.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/granite-4-2-30b.json·/api/v1/tools/qwen3-5-9b.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-4-2-30b qwen3-5-9b(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-4-2-30b", "b": "qwen3-5-9b"}at/mcp, no key