Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Granite 4.2 3B vs Step 3.7 Flash
Granite 4.2 3B and Step 3.7 Flash score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 59.8 (C) and 59.8 (C). Both do open-weight models you run yourself.
Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons
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 70
- Risk, 55 against 45
- Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 39
Watch for
No safety results published for 4.2, and only general safety cautions
Best for Teams with a GPU server or a provider account that want an open, long-context agent model with vision
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
About 131 GB to run at 4 bits with images, over a 128 GB machine's share
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 3B +53
Granite 4.2 3B 92
The card covers everything but a knowledge cut-off (17). IBM's disclosure lists the datasets with sources and sizes (20). The index file changed on 20 October 2026, 15 days before this check, and nothing in IBM's 4.2 repositories or the GitHub repository changed since (20). The two questions asked on IBM's 3B repositories have an IBM reply, and no new thread was opened after 21 October (20). Granite 4.1 3B stays in its own repository with no note (5), and the files agree with each other (10).
Step 3.7 Flash 39
Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters, the context and the language (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 0, Nothing on the card about the training data. Last change 10, the last commit, on 3 June 2026, fixed the modelling code, 160 days before this check and within 180. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (29 May to 24 June 2026) has a reply from a stepfun-ai member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, Step-3.5-Flash stays in its own repositories and 3.7 came out in new ones, with no dated note on the older cards that we read. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the context, and June commits fixed the modelling code. 14 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 39.
Reach Granite 4.2 3B +25
Granite 4.2 3B 95
Memory earns the full 30, since IBM's 4-bit MLX build is 2.07 GB and Ollama's Q4_K_M build 2.2 GB, about 2.5 to 2.6 GB with the fifth added. Five named runtimes run the granite architecture in released versions or their own libraries, so runtimes take the cap of 25, though LM Studio has no 4.2 entry. IBM's FP8, FP4, GGUF and MLX builds earn 15. Apache 2.0 with nothing added gives terms 15 and the ungated repositories download 10. Hosted too is 0, since only DeepInfra serves it and watsonx.ai stops at 4.1.
Step 3.7 Flash 70
Memory 5, the smallest build at 4 bits is StepFun's IQ4_XS GGUF, 104.99 GB with the 3.97 GB projector, and 108.96 GB × 1.2 = 130.8 GB, over what the reference machine can give a model and within 256 GB. The IQ3 and Q3 builds are below 4 bits and aren't read. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 have the step3p7 model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture, with StepFun's own GGUF. Four at 5 each, and the card documents all four. Builds 15, StepFun publishes GGUF at five quantised precisions, an FP8 build and an NVFP4 build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and its licence section, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for all four repositories on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, StepFun's own API serves it, per the card and our StepFun API listing, and Featherless and DeepInfra are live for it on Hugging Face. 5 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 70.
Risk Granite 4.2 3B +10
Granite 4.2 3B 55
File safety gets 15 of 25, safetensors only, less 10 because the card's vLLM command loads the repository's parser plugin. Provenance gets 15 for files in IBM's own organisation with hashes and a sigstore signature. Safety evaluation is 0, since 4.2 publishes no safety results. Agent guidance gets 5 for general cautions and the advice to add Granite Guardian. Apache 2.0 keeps licence risk at 15, and IBM's security.txt gives 5 of the security programme's 10.
Step 3.7 Flash 45
File safety 15, safetensors and GGUF only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the stepfun-ai organisation, which the card's StepFun platform and model page belong to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations section and gives no guidance on prompt injection, instruction priority, refusals or safeguards. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw on the card, and our StepFun API listing found no security.txt, bug bounty or disclosure policy. 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 45.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite 4.2 3B | Step 3.7 Flash | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 95 | 70 | Granite 4.2 3B +25 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 45 | Granite 4.2 3B +10 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 85 | even |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 92 | 39 | Granite 4.2 3B +53 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 59.8/100 | C 59.8/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite 4.2 3B | Step 3.7 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | IBM | StepFun |
| 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 (metadata and card; no LICENSE file) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2026-06-03 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | 3.8/5 (4) | none |
Verdicts
Granite 4.2 3B
A small reasoning model for tool calls, coding and multilingual chat, published by IBM under plain Apache 2.0 with signed files and a dataset disclosure, and run by llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers from a 2.2 GB Ollama build. Thinking turns off or shortens per request. It has no published safety results and no documented JSON mode.
Step 3.7 Flash
A capable open agent model with a clean licence, every kind of build and four released runtimes. Two things hold it back: it's a little too big for a 128 GB machine at 4 bits, whatever the card says, and StepFun has gone quiet on the repository since June. No safety results, limitations or data description.
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
Step 3.7 Flash
- On a 128 GB machine the 4-bit GGUF won't fit with a working context. Use StepFun's API or a provider, or a server
- On vLLM or SGLang pass
--tool-call-parser step3p5 --reasoning-parser step3p5 - The card's commands pass trust-remote-code. Released Transformers 5.22.2 has the model built in if you'd rather not run the repository's code
- For llama.cpp load the mmproj file from StepFun's GGUF repository for image input
- StepFun's API has two hosts. Use the one where your key was issued,
api.stepfun.aiorapi.stepfun.com - The same model is on our StepFun API listing, with prices and terms
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite 4.2 3B or Step 3.7 Flash?
Granite 4.2 3B and Step 3.7 Flash score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 59.8 (C) and 59.8 (C).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-step-3-7-flash.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/step-3-7-flash.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-4-2-3b step-3-7-flash(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-4-2-3b", "b": "step-3-7-flash"}at/mcp, no key