Compare / Granite 4.2 3B vs Llama 3.2 3B
Granite 4.2 3B vs Llama 3.2 3B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Granite 4.2 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 57.3 vs 19.1. On the 7 benchmarks both labs report, Granite 4.2 3B wins 7 and Llama 3.2 3B wins 0. Both need about 3.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only Llama 3.2 3B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.12 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 Llama 3.2 3B if…
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
- you want the more widely used model (more quantized builds and community support)
Specifications
| Granite 4.2 3B | Llama 3.2 3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 57.3 (likely 55–60) | 19.1 (likely 18–21) |
| Lab | IBM (Granite) · United States | Meta · United States |
| Released | 2026-08-07 | 2024-09-25 |
| Parameters | 3B (dense) | 3.2B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~3 GB | ~3.4 GB |
| Context window | 131K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input | text | text |
| Reasoning | No thinking | No thinking |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Llama 3.2 Community |
| API price / 1M tokens | Self-host only | $0.12 ($0.050 in, $0.33 out) |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 35.7K | 966K |
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 | Llama 3.2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 67.8 | 34.7✓ |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 55.9✓ | 25.5✓ |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | 6.6✓ | 5.3✓ |
| AIME Math | 78.3 | 6.7✓ |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 69.7 | 8.3✓ |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | — | 21.1✓ |
| IFBench Instruction following | 74.3 | 26.2✓ |
| BFCL Agentic | 52.4 | — |
| MATH-500 Math | — | 48.9✓ |
| HMMT Math | 66.7 | — |
| AA-LCR Long context | 24.3✓ | 4.3✓ |
| SciCode Coding | 25.3✓ | — |
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 Llama 3.2 3B?
Granite 4.2 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 57.3 vs 19.1. On the 7 benchmarks both labs report, Granite 4.2 3B wins 7 and Llama 3.2 3B wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Llama 3.2 3B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.12 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 3.4 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 Llama 3.2 3B commercially?
Granite 4.2 3B is released under Apache-2.0 and Llama 3.2 3B under Llama 3.2 Community. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.