Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B leads Granite 4.0 Micro on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 19.3 to 5.1, and Granite 4.0 Micro costs 11.6x less per output token ($0.112 vs $1.30 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 9 benchmarks have a result for both.
Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Granite 4.0 Micro for output tokens 11.6x cheaper ($0.112 vs $1.30 per million) and work measured by Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 9
- Granite 4.0 Micro only
- 4
- Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only
- 37
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B leads, 19.3 against 5.1.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Granite 4.0 Micro
Granite 4.0 Micro $0.0001, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Granite 4.0 Micro not benchmarked, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 76.6 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Granite 4.0 Micro 12.6% against Qwen3.5-35B-A3B 89.2%, 76.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Granite 4.0 Micro $0.112 against Qwen3.5-35B-A3B $1.30 per million output tokens, 11.6x apart.
- Context window
- Granite 4.0 Micro takes 131K tokens, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Granite 4.0 Micro | Bars | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 9 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1254 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 18.0% | Not measured | Only Granite 4.0 Micro measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 1.5% | 26.5% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 221.8 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1410 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1415 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1238 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1301 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 35 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 5.1 | 19.3 | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 142.5 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 12.6% | 89.2% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $463 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.6% | 84.5% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 5.0% | 21.0% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 28.3% | 83.5% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1400 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1408 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1411 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 6.0 | Not measured | Only Granite 4.0 Micro measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 6.0% | Not measured | Only Granite 4.0 Micro measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 2.8% | 70.0% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1404 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1410 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| MathArena | Not measured | 14.7% | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 44.7% | Not measured | Only Granite 4.0 Micro measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1413 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1421 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1399 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1394 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 24.8% | 72.5% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 7.0% | 72.0% | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
| DTBench | Not measured | 80.0% | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 29.5% | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1395 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1379 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1347 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1407 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1378 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1457 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1367 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1326 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1355 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1412 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1376 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1385 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1389 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1365 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1347 | Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Granite 4.0 Micro costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Granite 4.0 Micro costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Granite 4.0 Micro costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | IBM Granite 4.0 Micro | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | IBM Granite | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | October 20, 2025 | February 25, 2026 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.017 | $0.1625 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.112 | $1.30 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Qwen3.5-35B-A3B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Granite 4.0 Micro for output tokens 11.6x cheaper ($0.112 vs $1.30 per million) and work measured by Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?
Granite 4.0 Micro costs $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.112 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B costs $0.1625 and $1.30. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Granite 4.0 Micro or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Granite 4.0 Micro vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Granite 4.0 Micro's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.