Compare/Granite 4.1 8B vs Qwen3.5 2B (Non-reasoning)

Granite 4.1 8BvsQwen3.5 2B (Non-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 (Non-reasoning)

Input
$0.02/M
Output
$0.1/M
Speed
222 tok/s
TTFT
0.51s

Winner by Category

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

Pricing Comparison

MetricGranite 4.1 8BQwen3.5 2B (Non-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 (Non-reasoning)$0.03

Speed Comparison

Output Speed (tokens/s) — higher is better
Granite 4.1 8B
135 tok/s
Qwen3.5 2B (Non-reasoning)
222 tok/s
Time to First Token (seconds) — lower is better
Granite 4.1 8B
0.44s
Qwen3.5 2B (Non-reasoning)
0.51s

Benchmark Comparison

Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks

Intelligence Index
12.414.7
Coding Index
7.34.9
Math Index
GPQA Diamond
43.3%43.8%
MMLU-Pro
LiveCodeBench
AIME 2025
MATH-500
Humanity's Last Exam
3.8%4.9%
SciCode
21.8%7.2%
IFBench
38.6%29.1%
TerminalBench
0.0%3.8%
Granite 4.1 8B3 wins
4 winsQwen3.5 2B (Non-reasoning)

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Qwen3.5 2B (Non-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?

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

Which is faster for real-time applications?

Qwen3.5 2B (Non-reasoning) generates tokens faster at 222 tok/s vs 135 tok/s. Granite 4.1 8B also has lower time-to-first-token (0.44s vs 0.51s).

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

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