Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Inkling-Small
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 0 categories and Inkling-Small in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Inkling-Small leads 48.2 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 90% for Inkling-Small.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 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
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 46.5 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2026-07-15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 524K |
| Max output | 118K | 1.05M |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.45 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1409 |
| SciCode | — | 48.7% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1451 |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 18% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| CritPt | — | 8.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1423 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 6% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 150.15 |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 90% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| ProofBench | — | 6% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1459 |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 19.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1442 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1235 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1402 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1465 |
| LMArena French | — | 1436 |
| LMArena German | — | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1405 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1363 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1391 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1428 |
Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1399 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1401 |
Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1414 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1491 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1418 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Inkling-Small?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Inkling-Small?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Which has the bigger context window?
Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Inkling-Small share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.