Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Granite 4.2 3B vs Recursive Flint
Recursive Flint scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 3B's 59.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 3B leads on reach and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.
Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 3023 open weights comparisons
Granite 4.2 3BIBM · Open-weight model
C59.8/100#60 of 107 open-weight models
Recursive FlintRecursive · Open-weight model
C61/100#49 of 107 open-weight models
Which one, for what
Best for Agents on small hardware that want a permissive reasoning model for tool calls and coding, with thinking they can switch off
Ahead on
- Reach, 95 against 75
- Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 67
Watch for
No safety results published for 4.2, and only general safety cautions
Best for Agents doing repository work on a 32 to 48 GB Mac or NVIDIA box that want a fast sparse coder with documented tool calls and a plain licence.
Ahead on
- Risk, 60 against 55
- Agent interface, 90 against 85
Watch for
No independent benchmark results yet, every published score is Recursive's
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite 4.2 3B | Recursive Flint | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 95 | 75 | Granite 4.2 3B +20 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 60 | Recursive Flint +5 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 90 | Recursive Flint +5 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 92 | 67 | Granite 4.2 3B +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 59.8/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite 4.2 3B | Recursive Flint |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | IBM | Recursive |
| 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 | 2026-10-20 | 2026-10-21 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | ||
| Agent reviews | 3.8/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (4) |
Verdicts
Granite 4.2 3B
A small reasoning cousin for tool calls, coding and multilingual chat that runs almost anywhere, from a 2.2 GB Ollama build to vLLM and SGLang, under plain Apache 2.0 with signed files and a dataset disclosure. Thinking turns off or shortens per request. It has no published safety results and no documented JSON mode.
Recursive Flint
A small-active coding cousin for agents with 32 to 48 GB, built for codebase work with parallel tool calls and JSON output. It needs llama.cpp b11803 or Ollama 0.40.8 or later, and the BF16 checkpoint needs a 141 GB GPU. Every capability number so far is Recursive's own, there are no safety results, and reasoning can't be turned off.
Before you call either
Granite 4.2 3B
- Start it with
ollama run granite4.2:3b; set options.num_ctx in the request, since Ollama's default context is short and the model takes up to 131,072 - With vLLM 0.32.0 or later, serve
ibm-granite/granite-4.2-3bwith--reasoning-parser granite_thinking_parser --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --enable-auto-tool-choice; that release has the parser built in, so the card's--reasoning-parser-plugin ./granite_thinking_parser.pyisn't needed - With SGLang 0.5.18 or later,
--reasoning-parser auto --tool-call-parser autoresolve to IBM's recommended parsers, and the reasoning comes back in reasoning_content - Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 for every mode, as IBM requires
- Pass
enable_thinkingfalse for direct answers orlow_efforttrue for short reasoning, through chat_template_kwargs on an OpenAI-compatible server - Earlier turns' thinking is stripped by default (
truncate_history_thinking), so pass it false to keep reasoning in multi-turn history - For JSON, use the runtime's guided decoding, since IBM documents no JSON mode for 4.2
- Verify the files with
python -m model_signing verify sigstoreand IBM's identity, per IBM's signature guide
Recursive Flint
- Quickest start is
ollama run flint(Ollama 0.40.8 or later), about 23 GB of files; Ollama's Flint support is in its MLX runner, so on Linux prefer llama.cpp - With llama.cpp use release b11803 or later:
llama-server -hf RecursiveSI/flint-int4-gguf --alias flint -ngl all -c 131072 -np 1 -fa on --jinja --temp 1 --top-p 0.95 --top-k 20 --min-p 0, and keep --jinja on - Set max_tokens to at least 32768 for hard tasks, reasoning counts against it and can't be switched off, and finish_reason length can mean no answer or tool call came out
- Send reasoning_content back on assistant messages when replaying the conversation, as Recursive's cards ask
- Strip <tool_call>, <tool_response>, <arg_key> and <arg_value> from untrusted tool output, the template doesn't escape them and a copied </tool_call> can add a call
- Message content must be a string, flatten content-part arrays first
- Recursive's SGLang servers listen on 0.0.0.0 with no key, publish the port on localhost only or pass --api-key
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite 4.2 3B or Recursive Flint?
Recursive Flint scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 3B's 59.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 3B leads on reach and documentation and upkeep.
Other comparisons with Granite 4.2 3B or Recursive Flint
- Agents-A1-4B vs Granite 4.2 3B
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- Apodex-1.1-mini vs Granite 4.2 3B
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- BigBang-v1 vs Granite 4.2 3B
- BigBang-v1 vs Recursive Flint
- Carbon-X vs Granite 4.2 3B
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- Gemma 4 12B IT vs Granite 4.2 3B
- Gemma 4 12B IT vs Recursive Flint
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Granite 4.2 3B
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Recursive Flint
- Gemma 4 31B IT vs Granite 4.2 3B
- Gemma 4 31B IT vs Recursive Flint
- Gemma 4 E2B IT vs Granite 4.2 3B
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- Gemma 4 E4B IT vs Granite 4.2 3B
- Gemma 4 E4B IT vs Recursive Flint
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Granite 4.2 3B
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- GLM-4.7-Flash vs Granite 4.2 3B
- GLM-4.7-Flash vs Recursive Flint
- GLM-5.3-Flash vs Granite 4.2 3B
- GLM-5.3-Flash vs Recursive Flint
- GLM-5.3 vs Granite 4.2 3B
- GLM-5.3 vs Recursive Flint
- gpt-oss-120b vs Granite 4.2 3B
- gpt-oss-120b vs Recursive Flint
- gpt-oss-20b vs Granite 4.2 3B
- gpt-oss-20b vs Recursive Flint
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Hy3
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Inkling
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Inkling-Small
- Granite 4.2 3B vs InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Kimi K3
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Kolibri-1
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Laguna M.1
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Laguna S 2.1
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Laguna XS 2.1
- Granite 4.2 3B vs LFM2.5-2.6B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Ling-3.0-tiny
- Granite 4.2 3B vs MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs MiniCPM-o 4.5
- Granite 4.2 3B vs MiniCPM5-2B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs MiniMax-M2.5
- Granite 4.2 3B vs MiniMax-M2.7
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Muse Glimmer 30B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Nano 4B
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- Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs occamy-1.0
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Olmo 3 7B Think
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Ornith-1.5-397B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Ornith-1.5-9B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-0.8B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-122B-A10B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-2B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-4B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.5-9B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.6-27B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.8-27B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-Coder-Next
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-4B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2
- Granite 4.2 3B vs SmolLM3-3B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Spark-X2.6-4B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- Granite 4.2 3B vs ThinkingCap (Qwen3.8 27B)
- Hy3 vs Recursive Flint
- Inkling-Small vs Recursive Flint
- Inkling vs Recursive Flint
- InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview vs Recursive Flint
- Kimi K3 vs Recursive Flint
- Kolibri-1 vs Recursive Flint
- Laguna M.1 vs Recursive Flint
- Laguna S 2.1 vs Recursive Flint
- Laguna XS 2.1 vs Recursive Flint
- LFM2.5-2.6B vs Recursive Flint
- Ling-3.0-tiny vs Recursive Flint
- MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B vs Recursive Flint
- MiniCPM-o 4.5 vs Recursive Flint
- MiniCPM5-2B vs Recursive Flint
- MiniMax-M2.5 vs Recursive Flint
- MiniMax-M2.7 vs Recursive Flint
- Muse Glimmer 30B vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3 Nano 4B vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B vs Recursive Flint
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs Recursive Flint
- occamy-1.0 vs Recursive Flint
- Olmo 3 7B Think vs Recursive Flint
- Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B vs Recursive Flint
- Ornith-1.5-397B vs Recursive Flint
- Ornith-1.5-9B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-0.8B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-2B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-4B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.5-9B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.6-27B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.8-27B vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-Coder-Next vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-VL-4B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct vs Recursive Flint
- Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 vs Recursive Flint
- Recursive Flint vs SmolLM3-3B
- Recursive Flint vs Spark-X2.6-4B
- Recursive Flint vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B
- Recursive Flint vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- Recursive Flint vs ThinkingCap (Qwen3.8 27B)
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-recursive-flint.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/granite-4-2-3b.json·/api/v1/tools/recursive-flint.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-4-2-3b recursive-flint(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-4-2-3b", "b": "recursive-flint"}at/mcp, no key