# Granite 4.2 8B vs Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct (slim)

> Granite 4.2 8B scores 61 (C) to Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct's 55.7 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct.md (~10,200 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct
- 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 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct's 55.7 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. 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
- Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct: C 55.7, rank #119 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct.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 90; Agent interface, 85 against 75; Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 31.
- Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct, good for Coding agents and local coding tools that want an open model on one 24 GB GPU or a 32 GB Mac, with a plain licence.

| Category | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 95 | 90 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 55 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 75 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 92 | 31 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 8B | Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2025-12-03 |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Granite 4.2 8B +61: 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…); Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct 31 (Model card 11 of 20, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are there, but limitations, languages and a knowledge cut-off aren't.)
- Agent interface, Granite 4.2 8B +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.); Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct 75 (Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository.)
- Reach, Granite 4.2 8B +5: 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.); Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct 90 (Memory 25 of 30, LM Studio's MLX 4-bit build is 17.2 GB and Ollama's 4-bit build 19 GB, 21 to 23 GB with a fifth added, which fits 24 GB.)