Model comparison
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Inkling-Small
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher in 0 categories and Inkling-Small in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 22.2.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 524K.
- Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | |
| Noometry Index | 37.0 | 46.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-17 | 2026-07-15 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 524K |
| Max output | 66K | 1.05M |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $0.45 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.5 (#173), Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1373 | 1451 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1409 |
| SciCode | — | 48.7% |
| WeirdML | 35.2% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 325.9 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 28.0 (#96), Inkling-Small: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 36.9% | — |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 22.2 (#205), Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1377 | 1423 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.94 | 150.15 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.5% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| CritPt | — | 8.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 18% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 6% |
| DTBench | 62.8% | — |
| LMCA | 18.1% | — |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 38.0 (#144), Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1459 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 90% |
| ProofBench | — | 6% |
| Omni-MATH | 48% | — |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 32.5 (#210), Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1373 | 1442 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 19.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | 53.7% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 3.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.9% | — |
Multimodal Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 29.1 (#114), Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1198 | 1235 |
| VPCT | 30% | — |
Multilingual Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 49.3 (#134), Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1369 | 1402 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1404 | 1465 |
| LMArena French | 1388 | 1436 |
| LMArena German | 1389 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1359 | 1405 |
| LMArena Korean | 1360 | 1363 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1391 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1396 | 1428 |
Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 70.0 (#168), Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1367 | 1399 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |
Long Context Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 33.3 (#262), Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1373 | 1401 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 47.2% | — |
Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: 56.8 (#135), Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1379 | 1414 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1367 | 1331 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1366 | 1418 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1491 |
| WildBench | 81.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite better than Inkling-Small?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.0 on the Noometry Index. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs 3.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Inkling-Small?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Inkling-Small better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 38.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 524K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Inkling-Small share?
19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has 33 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.