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Claude Opus 5.5 vs IBM Granite 4.2 3B

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 60.4 to 15.0. IBM Granite 4.2 3B is 152.4x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · IBM · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 60.4 to 15.0, ranking #1 overall.

On price, IBM Granite 4.2 3B is roughly 152.4x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Claude Opus 5.5 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Opus 5.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 60.4 and ranks #1 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

Choose IBM Granite 4.2 3B

  • cost matters — it's about 152.4x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic
IBM Granite 4.2 3B
IBM
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
60.4
#1
15.0
#256
Reasoning
59.5
#1
11.3
#275
Coding
49.9
#1
-7.9
#287
Agents
45.5
#1
1.6
#193
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$4.00 / M
$0.03 / M
Output price
$20.00 / M
$0.12 / M
Context window
1,000,000
131,072

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Claude Opus 5.5
IBM Granite 4.2 3B
Math
41.8#6
13.3#239
Tool use
34.3#3
2.5#186
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

31 reported for Claude Opus 5.5 · 13 for IBM Granite 4.2 3B

No common benchmarks found

Claude Opus 5.5 and IBM Granite 4.2 3Bdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

IBM Granite 4.2 3B costs less

For input processing, Claude Opus 5.5 ($4.00/1M tokens) is 133.3x more expensive than IBM Granite 4.2 3B ($0.03/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Opus 5.5 ($20.00/1M tokens) is 166.7x more expensive than IBM Granite 4.2 3B ($0.12/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Opus 5.5 is more expensive than IBM Granite 4.2 3B.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Opus 5.5
Input tokens$4.00
Output tokens$20.00
Best providerAnthropic
IBM
IBM Granite 4.2 3B
Input tokens$0.03
Output tokens$0.12
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Opus 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to IBM Granite 4.2 3B's 131,072 tokens. IBM Granite 4.2 3B can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Claude Opus 5.5 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Opus 5.5
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
IBM
IBM Granite 4.2 3B
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Thu Oct 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Opus 5.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas IBM Granite 4.2 3B does not.

Claude Opus 5.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 5.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

IBM Granite 4.2 3B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Opus 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while IBM Granite 4.2 3B uses Apache 2.0.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude Opus 5.5

Proprietary

Closed source

IBM Granite 4.2 3B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 5.5 was released on 2026-09-22, while IBM Granite 4.2 3B was released on 2026-08-25.

Claude Opus 5.5 is 1 month newer than IBM Granite 4.2 3B.

Claude Opus 5.5

Sep 22, 2026

3 weeks ago

4w newer
IBM Granite 4.2 3B

Aug 25, 2026

1 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Opus 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while IBM Granite 4.2 3B's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Opus 5.5's training data extends to 2026-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without IBM Granite 4.2 3B's cutoff date.

Claude Opus 5.5

Jun 2026

IBM Granite 4.2 3B

—

Provider Availability

Claude Opus 5.5 is available from Anthropic. IBM Granite 4.2 3B is available from DeepInfra.

Claude Opus 5.5

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $4.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $20.00/1M

IBM Granite 4.2 3B

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.03/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.12/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Opus 5.5 and IBM Granite 4.2 3B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Opus 5.5
✓ Preferred
IBM Granite 4.2 3B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 5.5 vs IBM Granite 4.2 3B.

Which is better, Claude Opus 5.5 or IBM Granite 4.2 3B?

Claude Opus 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 60.4 to 15.0. Claude Opus 5.5 is made by Anthropic and IBM Granite 4.2 3B is made by IBM. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Opus 5.5 compare to IBM Granite 4.2 3B in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 5.5 scores BenchCAD (with Python tool): 96.2%, Global-MMLU: 94.3%, SWE-bench Multilingual: 93.9%, MILU: 93.1%, ArXivMath: 91.2%. IBM Granite 4.2 3B scores AIME 2025: 78.3%, IFBench: 74.3%, LiveCodeBench v6: 69.7%, MMLU-Pro: 67.8%, RULER 64k: 67.5%.

Is Claude Opus 5.5 cheaper than IBM Granite 4.2 3B?

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is 133.3x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4.00/M input and $20.00/M output via anthropic. IBM Granite 4.2 3B costs $0.03/M input and $0.12/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 5.5 and IBM Granite 4.2 3B?

Claude Opus 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and IBM Granite 4.2 3B supports 131K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Opus 5.5 and IBM Granite 4.2 3B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (60.4 vs 15.0), context window (1.0M vs 131K), input pricing ($4.00 vs $0.03/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 5.5 and IBM Granite 4.2 3B?

Claude Opus 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and IBM Granite 4.2 3B is developed by IBM.

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