IBM Granite 4.2 3B vs Sakana Namazu: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
IBM Granite 4.2 3B is developed by IBM, while Sakana Namazu comes from Sakana AI. Both were released in August 2026. IBM Granite 4.2 3B has a published size of about 3 billion parameters; Sakana AI has not disclosed the parameter count of Sakana Namazu.
The two models share 2 published benchmarks. Sakana Namazu leads on 2 of them. The widest gaps are on MMLU-Pro, where Sakana Namazu scores 90.3% against 67.8%; LiveCodeBench v6, where Sakana Namazu scores 90.3% against 69.7%. Averaged across everything we track, IBM Granite 4.2 3B sits at 55.7% and Sakana Namazu at 92.4%.
IBM Granite 4.2 3B is the cheaper API at $0.03 per million input tokens and $0.12 per million output tokens, roughly 32 times cheaper than Sakana Namazu at $0.95 and $4. Sakana Namazu takes the larger context window at 256K tokens, compared with 131K for IBM Granite 4.2 3B. IBM Granite 4.2 3B accepts text as input, while Sakana Namazu accepts text and images.
| Characteristic | IBM Granite 4.2 3B | Sakana Namazu |
|---|---|---|
| Company | IBM | Sakana AI |
| Release Date | August 25, 2026 | August 3, 2026 |
| Parameters | 3B | — |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Context (input) | 131K | 256K |
| Context (output) | 131K | 256K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.03 | $0.95 |
| Output Price / 1M | $0.12 | $4.00 |
| Average Score | 55.7% | 92.4% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | 90.3% |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | 90.3% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
IBM Granite 4.2 3B leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: IBM Granite 4.2 3B — 0.6, Sakana Namazu — 0.9.
IBM Granite 4.2 3B is 33.0x cheaper: input $0.03/1M vs $0.95/1M tokens.
Sakana Namazu supports a larger context: 256K vs 131K tokens.
IBM Granite 4.2 3B is newer: released 8/25/2026 vs 8/3/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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The IBM Granite 4.2 3B and Sakana Namazu 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 Sakana Namazu page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.