Granite 3.3 8B Instruct vs Mercury 3
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 1.9. Mercury 3 is 3.1x cheaper per token.
IBM · Inception · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 1.9, ranking #98 overall.
On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 3.1x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Mercury 3 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 Granite 3.3 8B Instruct
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Choose Mercury 3
- overall performance matters — it scores 36.1 and ranks #98 on LLM Stats
- your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
- cost matters — it's about 3.1x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
14 reported for Granite 3.3 8B Instruct · 12 for Mercury 3
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct and Mercury 3don'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
For input processing, Granite 3.3 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens) is 5.0x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, Granite 3.3 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens) is 1.4x more expensive than Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Granite 3.3 8B Instruct is more expensive than Mercury 3.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Granite 3.3 8B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Mercury 3 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Granite 3.3 8B Instruct is limited to 8,192 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct
Mercury 3
License
Usage and distribution terms
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Mercury 3 uses a proprietary license.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct was released on 2025-04-16, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.
Mercury 3 is 18 months newer than Granite 3.3 8B Instruct.
Apr 16, 2025
1.5 years ago
Oct 19, 2026
3 days ago
1.5yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-04-01, while Mercury 3's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Granite 3.3 8B Instruct's training data extends to 2024-04-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mercury 3's cutoff date.
Apr 2024
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Provider Availability
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct is available from Replicate. Mercury 3 is available from Inception.
Granite 3.3 8B Instruct
Mercury 3
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Granite 3.3 8B Instruct and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Granite 3.3 8B Instruct vs Mercury 3.