Granite 4.2 8B vs Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning

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.

Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning 70

The card covers all seven fields, reading the 2019 to 2025 data collection period as the cut-off (20). Training data is listed with sources and sizes by dataset and one set is published (20). The Hub files last changed on 24 and 25 August 2026, and NVIDIA's TensorRT-LLM, which the card names for serving, changed the Nemotron-H model code on 14 October 2026, 20 days back (20). None of the 11 questions across the three repositories has a reply (0). It's a first release with no version policy stated (5). The shipped Jinja template and the tokenizer config's template differ, and reports about the template and a modeling file wait unanswered (5). 20 + 20 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 70.

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. Its Q4_0 GGUF is 5.06 GB and Ollama's library build granite4.2:8b (5.3 GB) fits 8 GB too. Runtimes 25, Released versions run the granite architecture in llama.cpp (granite, b12242), vLLM (GraniteForCausalLM in the v0.33.0 registry), SGLang (granite.py at v0.5.23), Transformers (v5.22.2) and Ollama (its own granite4.2 library entry, 8b tag). Builds 15, IBM publishes FP8, MXFP4 and NVFP4 safetensors builds, a GGUF repository with Q4_0 to Q8_0 and BF16 files, and 4-bit, 8-bit and BF16 MLX builds, so quantised builds at two precisions or more. Terms 15, Apache 2.0, an OSI-approved licence, with no use policy or other terms added on the card. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the BF16, FP8, MXFP4, NVFP4, GGUF and MLX repositories, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps one inference provider (DeepInfra, live), short of the two the line needs. 30 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 95.

Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning 85

Memory earns 20 because the smallest 4-bit builds, Ollama's NVFP4 at 21 GB and NVIDIA's NVFP4 at 22.4 GB, need about 25 to 27 GB with the fifth added, which fits 32 GB but not 24. Runtimes reach the cap of 25 with released code in vLLM, SGLang and llama.cpp and library entries in Ollama and LM Studio. NVIDIA's FP8 and NVFP4 builds give builds the full 15. The NVIDIA Open Model Agreement is a custom licence with free commercial use, so terms get 10. The ungated repositories give download the full 10, and NVIDIA's own API serving it gives hosted too its 5.

Granite 4.2 8B 55

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the ibm-granite organisation, which IBM's Granite docs and the GitHub README link to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, field-of-use limit, threshold or change clause, and the card's licence link resolves. Security programme 5, www.ibm.com/.well-known/security.txt names IBM PSIRT, read for the 3B listing on 4 November 2026 (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 55.

Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning 60

File safety gets 15, safetensors only but loaded with trust_remote_code. Provenance gets 15 for files in NVIDIA's own organisation with a SHA-256 for every shard. The agreement has no use policy, threshold or change clause and the grant is irrevocable, so licence risk keeps 15. NVIDIA's PSIRT form on the card and its public bulletins give the security programme 10. Agent guidance gets 5 for general cautions, and safety evaluation scores 0 because the subcards name the safety tests without publishing results.

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.

Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning 90

A Jinja template ships in the repository (20). The card names the qwen3_coder parser and NVIDIA's cookbooks show tools declared with the OpenAI schema and tool_calls read back (25). The template renders several calls per turn and the card says it supports tool calling (20). JSON output is claimed with no word on how to ask for it (5). Thinking turns off per request, a budget caps it and the parser returns the reasoning apart (10). The context is 262,144 tokens, trained in (10).