# Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large 4 (slim)

> Granite 4.2 8B scores 61 (C) to Mistral Large 4's 54.6 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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Granite 4.2 8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Mistral Large 4's 54.6 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Mistral Large 4 leads on risk and agent interface. 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
- Mistral Large 4: C 54.6, rank #128 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-large-4.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 50; Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 64.
- Mistral Large 4, good for Operators with an 8-GPU Blackwell or H200 node who want a frontier-sized open model for coding agents and defensive security, with a hosted twin on Mistral's API. Ahead on Risk, 75 against 55; Agent interface, 95 against 85.

| Category | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Large 4 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 95 | 50 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 75 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 95 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 92 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Large 4 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Mistral Ecosystem Open-Weight License (modified MIT) |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2026-10-29 |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Granite 4.2 8B +45: 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.); Mistral Large 4 50 (Memory scores 0, since the smallest 4-bit build, Mistral's NVFP4, is 610 GB, about 732 GB with a fifth added, far above 256 GB.)
- Documentation and upkeep, Granite 4.2 8B +28: 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…); Mistral Large 4 64 (The card covers intended use, architecture, parameters, context and languages, and misses limitations and a cut-off (14).)
- Risk, Mistral Large 4 +20: Granite 4.2 8B 55 (File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25).); Mistral Large 4 75 (File safety scores 25, safetensors only and loaded by Transformers' own code with a Jinja template.)
- Agent interface, Mistral Large 4 +10: 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.); Mistral Large 4 95 (The chat template is in the repository (20).)