IBM Granite 4.2 3B vs Laguna XS 2.1: Specs & Benchmark Comparison

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is developed by IBM, while Laguna XS 2.1 comes from Poolside. Laguna XS 2.1 was released in July 2026, and IBM Granite 4.2 3B followed a month later in August 2026. Laguna XS 2.1 is the larger model at roughly 33 billion parameters, against 3 billion for IBM Granite 4.2 3B.

We have 13 benchmark results for IBM Granite 4.2 3B and 4 benchmark results for Laguna XS 2.1, but they were measured on different benchmarks, so there is no like-for-like scoreboard.

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is the cheaper API at $0.03 per million input tokens and $0.12 per million output tokens, roughly 3 times cheaper than Laguna XS 2.1 at $0.10 and $0.20. Laguna XS 2.1 takes the larger context window at 262K tokens, compared with 131K for IBM Granite 4.2 3B.

Characteristic	IBM Granite 4.2 3B	Laguna XS 2.1
Company	IBM	Poolside
Release Date	August 25, 2026	July 2, 2026
Parameters	3B	33B
Multimodal	No	No
Context (input)	131K	262K
Context (output)	131K	—
Input Price / 1M	$0.03	$0.10
Output Price / 1M	$0.12	$0.20
Average Score	55.7%	54.8%

Verdict

IBM Granite 4.2 3B leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.

Overall Performance

Both models show comparable average scores: IBM Granite 4.2 3B — 0.6, Laguna XS 2.1 — 0.5.

API Cost

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is 2.0x cheaper: input $0.03/1M vs $0.10/1M tokens.

Context Window

Laguna XS 2.1 supports a larger context: 262K vs 131K tokens.

Recency

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is newer: released 8/25/2026 vs 7/2/2026.

More About These Models

IBM Granite 4.2 3B

IBM — specs, benchmarks, API

Laguna XS 2.1

Poolside — specs, benchmarks, API

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Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better for coding — IBM Granite 4.2 3B or Laguna XS 2.1?

Direct comparison on the SWE-Bench benchmark is not available. We recommend reviewing other metrics on the comparison page.

Which model is cheaper — IBM Granite 4.2 3B or Laguna XS 2.1?

IBM Granite 4.2 3B is cheaper for input: $0.03 per 1M tokens vs $0.10.

Which has a larger context window — IBM Granite 4.2 3B or Laguna XS 2.1?

Laguna XS 2.1 supports a larger context: 262,144 tokens vs 131,072.

The IBM Granite 4.2 3B and Laguna XS 2.1 comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the IBM Granite 4.2 3B or Laguna XS 2.1 page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.