Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Granite 4.2 8B vs MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B
Granite 4.2 8B and MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (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 that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 16 GB machine
Ahead on
- Agent interface, 85 against 70
- Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 48
Watch for
No safety results published for it
Best for Agents that need a cheap local model to read screenshots, photos and short video on a phone, a laptop or beside a bigger model
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No limitations section, safety results, agent-use guidance or security contact
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 8B +44
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 tested languages are on the card. Training data 20, IBM's disclosure file for the 8B lists the datasets used in pre-training and post-training as machine-readable metadata, and the card describes the three training stages. Last change 20, the last commit, on 20 October 2026, replaced model.safetensors.index.json (titled "granite-4.2 index file fix"), 21 days before this check. Responsiveness 20, Of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (13 September to 5 November 2026), 4 have a reply from an ibm-granite member. Version policy 5, Granite 4.1 8B 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 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 92.
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B 48
Model card 8, Intended use (image, multi-image and video understanding on device), architecture (early visual-token compression inside the vision encoder) and parameters (1B) are there. Training data 0, no description of the training data on the card. Last change 20, the last commit, on 30 October 2026, updated the card and removed an unused asset folder, eleven days before this check. Responsiveness 0, the repository has no discussions that aren't pull requests (two pull requests in all), so nobody has asked anything yet and the line reads as none answered, as settled in calibration. Version policy 10, MiniCPM-V 4.5 and 4.6 stay in their own repositories and the GitHub README dates each release. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the thinking switch, and no report waits without a reply, since there are no discussions. 8 + 0 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 48.
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. 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.
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B 70
Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository, 7,249 characters. Tool-calling format 10, the card shows tools declared in the OpenAI tools array in a request to Transformers' server, but not how a call comes back, and names no parser for vLLM or SGLang. Trained tool calling 20, the template loops over tool_calls, so it renders several calls in one assistant turn, and the card gives a tool-calling request as a supported use. Structured output 0, Neither JSON nor JSON Schema output is documented or claimed for the model on the card. Reasoning control 10, the card passes enable_thinking per request in its examples, the template has been off by default since 19 October 2026, and the GGUF repository keeps thinking builds in their own folder. Context 10, 262,144 tokens, max_position_embeddings in the text config. 20 + 10 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 70.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 95 | 95 | even |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 55 | even |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 70 | Granite 4.2 8B +15 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 92 | 48 | Granite 4.2 8B +44 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 61/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite 4.2 8B | MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | IBM | OpenBMB |
| 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 | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
Verdicts
Granite 4.2 8B
IBM's mid-size reasoning cousin, with the same strengths as the 3B. It runs in every runtime we count from IBM's own builds on a 16 GB machine, 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.
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B
A vision-language cousin small enough for a phone, under plain Apache 2.0, that every runtime we count can load. The projector is bigger than the language model, so plan for about 2 GB. The card says nothing about limits or training data and doesn't show how a tool call comes back.
Before you call either
Granite 4.2 8B
- Start it with
ollama run granite4.2:8b, orllama-server -hf ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-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
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B
- Start it with
llama-server -hf openbmb/MiniCPM-V-4.7-1B-gguf:Q4_K_M --jinja, orollama run openbmb/minicpm-v4.7:1b - For image input in llama.cpp add
mmproj-model-f16.gguf, or the smaller 4x projector - The GGUF files at the repository root have thinking off. Use the files in
thinking/when you want the trace - Use temperature 0.7, top_p 0.95 and top_k 100 in instruct mode, as the card recommends
- Check tool calls in your runtime first, since the card names no parser
- Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite 4.2 8B or MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B?
Granite 4.2 8B and MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C).
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- MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B vs ThinkingCap (Qwen3.8 27B)
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-minicpm-v-4-7-1b.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/granite-4-2-8b.json·/api/v1/tools/minicpm-v-4-7-1b.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-4-2-8b minicpm-v-4-7-1b(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-4-2-8b", "b": "minicpm-v-4-7-1b"}at/mcp, no key