IBM Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3 Max
IBM Granite 4.2 30B and Qwen3 Max are closely matched at 24.0 and 21.8 on the LLM Stats Score.
IBM · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
IBM Granite 4.2 30B and Qwen3 Max are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 24.0 and 21.8.
In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, IBM Granite 4.2 30B wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose IBM Granite 4.2 30B
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 4 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Choose Qwen3 Max
- you want predictable pricing at $0.50/M input and $5.00/M output
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
18 reported for IBM Granite 4.2 30B · 6 for Qwen3 Max
IBM Granite 4.2 30B outperforms in 3 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA, LiveCodeBench v6), while Qwen3 Max is better at 1 benchmark (SWE-Bench Verified).
IBM Granite 4.2 30B shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3 Max has 970.0B more parameters than IBM Granite 4.2 30B, making it 3233.3% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3 Max specifies input context (256,000 tokens). Only Qwen3 Max specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
IBM Granite 4.2 30B is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Qwen3 Max 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
IBM Granite 4.2 30B was released on 2026-08-25, while Qwen3 Max was released on 2025-12-15.
IBM Granite 4.2 30B is 8 months newer than Qwen3 Max.
Aug 25, 2026
5 days ago
8mo newerDec 15, 2025
8 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against IBM Granite 4.2 30B and Qwen3 Max side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about IBM Granite 4.2 30B vs Qwen3 Max.