Model comparison

gpt-oss-120b vs Inkling-Small

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 36.0 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 9.1× 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.

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.0

Rank #210 Confirmed

Inkling-Small Thinking Machines Lab

46.5

Rank #57 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-120b scores higher in 1 category and Inkling-Small in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 39.0 to 19.5.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 75.8% for gpt-oss-120b and 88.5% for Inkling-Small.
  • gpt-oss-120b is cheaper at $0.037 / $0.17 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

gpt-oss-120b and Inkling-Small specifications
gpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
ProviderOpenAIThinking Machines Lab
Noometry Index36.046.5
Released2025-08-052026-07-15
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K524K
Max output41K1.05M
Input $ / M tokens$0.037$0.45
Output $ / M tokens$0.17$1.20
Results tracked4833

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Category by category

Coding Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 33.2 (#251), Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
SciCode36%48.7%
LMArena Coding13801451
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)26%—
Aider Polyglot41.8%—
LMArena WebDev—1408
WeirdML48.2%—
ALE-Bench575.62—
AlgoTune1.41—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 12.1 (#145), Inkling-Small: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
Terminal-Bench18.7%—
APEX-Agents4.4%—
METR Time Horizons56.6%—
Vending-Bench 2-21.53—

Reasoning Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 19.5 (#236), Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
CritPt1.1%8.3%
Chess Puzzles20%18%
LMArena Hard Prompts13641424
Mystery Game Puzzles2%6%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.94150.13
ARC-AGI-2—40.1%
SimpleBench22.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark58.6%—
ARC-AGI-1—84%
DTBench76.3%—
LMCA22.1%—
Surface Evolver Bench25%—

Math gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 50.6 (#43), Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202588.9%90%
LMArena Math13881453
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—46.3%
FrontierMath Tier 4—17.1%
ProofBench—6%
Omni-MATH68.8%—

Knowledge Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 42.3 (#89), Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
GPQA Diamond75.8%88.5%
LMArena Expert13561442
SimpleQA Verified—19.1%
MMLU-Pro79.5%—
Confabulations15.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%—
GPQA (HELM)68.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: —, Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
LMArena Vision—1235

Multilingual Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 48.2 (#142), Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
LMArena Non-English13501400
LMArena Chinese13841458
LMArena French13701438
LMArena German13551412
LMArena Japanese13321399
LMArena Korean12831355
LMArena Russian13431392
LMArena Spanish13881426

Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 69.5 (#168), Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
LMArena Instruction Following13181397
IFEval83.6%—

Long Context Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#273), Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
LMArena Longer Query13191401
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads

gpt-oss-120b: 46.7 (#213), Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bInkling-Small
LMArena Text13661413
LMArena Creative Writing12741330
EQ-Bench Creative Writing9611491
LMArena Multi-Turn13401420
Short-Story Creative Writing77.1%—
WildBench84.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-120b better than Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 36.0 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-120b or Inkling-Small?

gpt-oss-120b is cheaper. It lists at $0.037 per million input tokens and $0.17 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.

Is gpt-oss-120b or Inkling-Small better for coding?

Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.3 versus 33.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-120b and Inkling-Small share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-120b has 48 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.

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