Compare/Granite 4.1 8B vs Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)

Granite 4.1 8BvsQwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)

Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.

IBM

Granite 4.1 8B

Input
$0.05/M
Output
$0.1/M
Speed
135 tok/s
TTFT
0.44s
Alibaba

Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)

Input
$0.02/M
Output
$0.1/M
Speed
TTFT

Winner by Category

Cheaper
Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)
Faster (tok/s)
Granite 4.1 8B
Lower Latency
Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)
Benchmarks (4-3)
Granite 4.1 8B

Pricing Comparison

MetricGranite 4.1 8BQwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)
Input ($/M tokens)$0.05$0.02
Output ($/M tokens)$0.1$0.1
Cost for 1M input + 100K output tokens:
Granite 4.1 8B$0.06
Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)$0.03

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Granite 4.1 8B
135 tok/s
Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Granite 4.1 8B
0.44s
Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
12.416.3
Coding Index
7.33.5
Math Index
GPQA Diamond
43.3%45.6%
MMLU-Pro
LiveCodeBench
AIME 2025
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
3.8%2.1%
SciCode
21.8%2.8%
IFBench
38.6%31.5%
TerminalBench
0.0%3.8%
Granite 4.1 8B4 wins
3 winsQwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.1 8B or Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)?

Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning) is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.04/M tokens vs $0.06/M for Granite 4.1 8B.

Which model performs better on benchmarks?

Granite 4.1 8B wins 4 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 3 for Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning). See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Granite 4.1 8B generates tokens faster at 135 tok/s vs 0 tok/s. However, Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning) has lower time-to-first-token (0.00s vs 0.44s).

When should I use Granite 4.1 8B vs Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning)?

Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3.5 2B (Reasoning) for lower cost, Granite 4.1 8B for stronger benchmark performance, and Granite 4.1 8B for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.