Compare / Granite 4.2 3B vs LFM2.5 2.6B
Granite 4.2 3B vs LFM2.5 2.6B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Granite 4.2 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 54.8 vs 43.2. On the 5 benchmarks both labs report, Granite 4.2 3B wins 3 and LFM2.5 2.6B wins 2. Both need about 3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only LFM2.5 2.6B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.39 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick Granite 4.2 3B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you mostly write code
- you need math and reasoning
- you need precise instruction following
- you work with long documents
- you need a permissive license (Apache-2.0)
Pick LFM2.5 2.6B if…
- you build agents that call tools
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
Specifications
| Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5 2.6B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 54.8 (likely 51–58) | 43.2 (likely 39–48) |
| Lab | IBM (Granite) · United States | Liquid AI · United States |
| Released | 2026-08-07 | 2026-07-28 |
| Parameters | 3B (dense) | 2.7B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~3 GB | ~2.3 GB |
| Context window | 131K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input | text | text |
| Reasoning | No thinking | No thinking |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LFM Open License |
| API price / 1M tokens | Self-host only | $0.39 ($0.35 in, $0.50 out) |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 33.8K | 69K |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | LFM2.5 2.6B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 67.8 | ≈ 68 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 54.8 | 57.8 |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | ≈ 8 | 5.9 |
| AIME Math | 78.3 | 51.9 |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 69.7 | 59.4 |
| SWE-bench Verified Coding | ≈ 38 | 18.0 |
| IFBench Instruction following | 74.3 | 59.2 |
| IFEval Instruction following | — | 95.4 |
| BFCL Agentic | 52.4 | 56.9 |
| HMMT Math | 66.7 | — |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, Granite 4.2 3B or LFM2.5 2.6B?
Granite 4.2 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 54.8 vs 43.2. On the 5 benchmarks both labs report, Granite 4.2 3B wins 3 and LFM2.5 2.6B wins 2.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only LFM2.5 2.6B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.39 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Granite 4.2 3B has the longer context window: 131K tokens against 128K.
Can I use Granite 4.2 3B and LFM2.5 2.6B commercially?
Granite 4.2 3B is released under Apache-2.0 and LFM2.5 2.6B under LFM Open License. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.