# Granite 4.2 8B vs MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B (slim)

> Granite 4.2 8B and MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B score within a point of each other for open-weight models you run yourself, 61 and 61 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-mimo-v2-6-distill-qwen-9b.md (~10,350 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-mimo-v2-6-distill-qwen-9b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-mimo-v2-6-distill-qwen-9b
- 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 8B and MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B leads on risk. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Granite 4.2 8B: C 61, rank #66 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-4-2-8b.min.md
- MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B: C 61, rank #47 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mimo-v2-6-distill-qwen-9b.min.md
- Granite 4.2 8B, good for Agents that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 16 GB machine Ahead on Reach, 95 against 80; Agent interface, 85 against 70; Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 40.
- MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B, good for Researchers and agents that want a small coding and terminal-agent model to fine-tune further on a 24 GB GPU, or to run at 4-bit through Ollama in about 8 GB. Ahead on Risk, 65 against 55.

| Category | Granite 4.2 8B | MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 95 | 80 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 65 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 70 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 92 | 40 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 8B | MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Xiaomi (MiMo team) |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT (metadata only, no LICENSE file); built on Qwen3.5-9B under Apache 2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2026-09-21 |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Granite 4.2 8B +52: 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…); MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B 40 (Model card 5 of 20, intended use and parameters only.)
- Reach, Granite 4.2 8B +15: 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.); MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B 80 (Memory 30 of 30, Ollama's library build at q4_K_M is 6.6 GB, 7.9 GB with a fifth added, while Xiaomi's only build is BF16 at 18.85 GB.)
- Agent interface, Granite 4.2 8B +15: 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.); MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B 70 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.)
- Risk, MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B +10: Granite 4.2 8B 55 (File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25).); MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B 65 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code runs.)