Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Inkling-Small

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Inkling-Small Thinking Machines Lab

46.5

Rank #63 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 4 categories and Inkling-Small in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 18.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-1: 21.2% for DeepSeek-R1 and 84% for Inkling-Small.
  • Inkling-Small is cheaper at $0.45 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2.15 for DeepSeek-R1.
  • Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 164K.
  • Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Inkling-Small specifications
DeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
ProviderDeepSeekThinking Machines Lab
Noometry Index42.346.5
Released2025-01-202026-07-15
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window164K524K
Max output64K1.05M
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.45
Output $ / M tokens$2.15$1.20
Results tracked5233

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
SciCode35.7%48.7%
LMArena Coding14271451
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
LMArena WebDev—1409
WeirdML41.6%—
LiveBench Coding66.7%—
ALE-Bench804.12—
AlgoTune1.7—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Inkling-Small: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
BALROG34.9%—
METR Time Horizons53.8%—

Reasoning Inkling-Small leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
ARC-AGI-21.3%40.1%
ARC-AGI-121.2%84%
CritPt1.1%8.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts14161423
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29150.15
SimpleBench40.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%—
Chess Puzzles—18%
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
Mystery Game Puzzles—6%
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—

Math Inkling-Small leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%90%
LMArena Math14001459
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—46.3%
FrontierMath Tier 4—17.1%
ProofBench—6%
Omni-MATH42.4%—
LiveBench Math80.7%—
MATH Level 596.6%—

Knowledge Inkling-Small leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
GPQA Diamond76.3%88.5%
LMArena Expert13941442
SimpleQA Verified—19.1%
MMLU-Pro79.3%—
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
GPQA (HELM)66.6%—

Multimodal Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: —, Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
LMArena Vision—1235

Multilingual Too close to call

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
LMArena Non-English14121402
LMArena Chinese14421465
LMArena French14171436
LMArena German14041405
LMArena Japanese13911405
LMArena Korean13601363
LMArena Russian14231391
LMArena Spanish14111428

Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
LMArena Instruction Following13821399
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—
IFEval78.4%—

Long Context DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
LMArena Longer Query13911401
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Inkling-Small
LMArena Text14281414
LMArena Creative Writing14051331
EQ-Bench Creative Writing15001491
LMArena Multi-Turn14051418
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
WildBench82.8%—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 42.3 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-R1 lists at $0.50 and $2.15.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Inkling-Small better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 43.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 164K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Inkling-Small share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.

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