# Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct (slim)

> Granite 4.2 30B scores 61 (C) to Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct's 56.4 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-qwen3-vl-32b-instruct.md (~9,800 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-qwen3-vl-32b-instruct.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-qwen3-vl-32b-instruct
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-10
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Granite 4.2 30B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct's 56.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Granite 4.2 30B: C 61, rank #65 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-4-2-30b.min.md
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct: C 56.4, rank #115 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwen3-vl-32b-instruct.min.md
- Granite 4.2 30B, good 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 60; Documentation and upkeep, 87 against 31.
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct, good for An agent with a 32 GB GPU or more that wants the largest dense Qwen3-VL model for images, documents and video

| Category | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 90 | 85 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 55 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 60 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 87 | 31 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 30B | Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Last release | 2026-09-04 | 2025-11-01 |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Granite 4.2 30B +56: 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 1…); Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct 31 (The card misses limitations, languages and a cut-off (11).)
- Agent interface, Granite 4.2 30B +25: 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.); Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct 60 (A Jinja chat template in the repository (20).)
- 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.); Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct 85 (Alibaba's own Q4_K_M GGUF is 19.76 GB and 20.53 GB with the vision file it needs for images, so with a fifth added it needs about 25 GB and the 32 GB band (20).)