Model comparison
Gemma 3 27B vs Inkling-Small
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.
GoogleSummary
- They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 0 categories and Inkling-Small in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Inkling-Small leads 48.2 to 25.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 90% for Inkling-Small.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | |
| Noometry Index | 30.8 | 46.5 |
| Released | 2025-03-11 | 2026-07-15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 524K |
| Max output | 8K | 1.05M |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $0.45 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.16 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 43 | 33 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 22.5 (#334), Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 21.2% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1451 |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1409 |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 25.1 (#110), Inkling-Small: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 16.7 (#301), Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 8.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 18% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1423 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | 150.15 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 6% |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 25.9 (#265), Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | 90% |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1459 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 6% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 25.5 (#261), Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | 88.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1304 | 1442 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 19.1% |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
Multimodal Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 32.6 (#100), Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1164 | 1235 |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |
Multilingual Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 46.9 (#155), Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1402 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1346 | 1465 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | 1436 |
| LMArena German | 1362 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1405 |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | 1363 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1391 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1349 | 1428 |
Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 70.6 (#160), Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1399 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |
Long Context Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#293), Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1401 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads
Gemma 3 27B: 52.5 (#168), Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1414 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | 1491 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1345 | 1418 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 27B better than Inkling-Small?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 6.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Inkling-Small?
Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Is Gemma 3 27B or Inkling-Small better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 22.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Inkling-Small share?
25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.