Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 8B leads on reach, agent interface and documentation and upkeep. 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

Granite 4.2 8B C

Best 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 34

Watch for

No safety results published for it

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B B

Best for Agents with a 128 GB unified-memory machine or two large GPUs that want a capable vision-language model with a plain licence.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

Too big for a single 64 GB machine even at 4 bits

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 +58

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.

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 34

The card covers five of the seven items and misses limitations and a cut-off (14). Training data is a general description without a cut-off (5). The files last changed on 24 April 2026, 192 days before this check, past the 180-day band and within a year (5), and Qwen's GitHub repository holds only a README and licence, so no reference code of Alibaba's changed later. No Qwen member has answered any of the 21 discussions that aren't pull requests, recounted on 2 November (0), and GitHub issues couldn't be counted. It's a first release at this size (5), and a template fix and a run report still wait unanswered (5). 14 + 5 + 5 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 34.

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. 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.

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 80

Memory earns 10 of 30, since Alibaba's GPTQ 4-bit build is 78.9 GB, about 95 GB with a fifth added, which fits our reference machine but no smaller band. Runtimes reach the 25 cap on released llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers. Alibaba's FP8 and GPTQ-Int4 builds give builds the full 15. Apache 2.0 with nothing added gives terms 15, the ungated repositories give download 10, and Alibaba's own Model Studio plus Novita and DeepInfra give hosted too its 5.

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.

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B 70

The template ships in the repository (20) and renders several tool calls per turn for a model trained for tool use (20). Tool-calling format gets 10, because the card names the qwen3_coder parser but leaves the declaration and call format to the template. Thinking turns off per request and comes back in think tags split by the qwen3 parser (10), and 262,144 tokens is native (10). Structured output scores 0, as nothing documents JSON output for the model.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGranite 4.2 8BQwen3.5-122B-A10BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259580Granite 4.2 8B +15
Risk20%205555even
Agent interface10%108570Granite 4.2 8B +15
Documentation and upkeep10%109234Granite 4.2 8B +58
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100B 63.1/100

Facts side by side

FactGranite 4.2 8BQwen3.5-122B-A10B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorIBMAlibaba (Qwen team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-202026-02-24
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

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.

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

A strong mid-size cousin for coding, agent steps and reading images or video, with thinking you can switch off per request. Alibaba's 4-bit build needs about 95 GB, which fits one 128 GB unified-memory machine, and several providers host it. The main risk is silence, with no safety results, agent guidance or answers from Alibaba.

Before you call either

Granite 4.2 8B

  1. Start it with ollama run granite4.2:8b, or llama-server -hf ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja
  2. 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
  3. Thinking is on by default. Pass enable_thinking false to turn it off or low_effort true for short reasoning
  4. The context is 131,072 tokens. The card's 512K extension isn't documented
  5. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
  6. IBM recommends Granite Guardian beside it to flag risky inputs and outputs

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

  1. Quickest start on a 128 GB machine is ollama run qwen3.5:122b (Q4_K_M, 81 GB of files, about 97 GB with context)
  2. Alibaba's 4-bit build serves with vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-GPTQ-Int4 --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --quantization moe_wna16, though that kernel isn't documented for AMD gfx1151
  3. Use the qwen3_coder tool parser and the qwen3 reasoning parser, as the card's commands do
  4. Turn thinking off with "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false} in the request body, since it's on by default and /think and /nothink aren't supported
  5. Sampling per the card is temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20 when thinking, and temperature 0.7, top_p 0.8, top_k 20 and presence_penalty 1.5 without
  6. Keep the context at 128K or more if you rely on thinking, and turn on YaRN only past 262,144 tokens
  7. Add --language-model-only in vLLM to skip the vision encoder and free memory for the KV cache when you only need text
  8. Validate any JSON it returns, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-122B-A10B?

Qwen3.5-122B-A10B scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 8B leads on reach, agent interface and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Granite 4.2 8B or Qwen3.5-122B-A10B

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