Noometry

Model comparison

Inkling-Small vs Nova 2 Lite

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Inkling-Small Thinking Machines Lab

46.5

Rank #63 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 8 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 27.5.
  • Inkling-Small is cheaper at $0.45 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Nova 2 Lite.
  • Nova 2 Lite accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 524K.
  • Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Inkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
ProviderThinking Machines LabAmazon
Noometry Index46.539.7
Released2026-07-152025-12-01
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window524K1M
Max output1.05M64K
Input $ / M tokens$0.45$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$2.50
Results tracked3319

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Category by category

Coding Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding14511385
LMArena WebDev1409—
SciCode48.7%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Inkling-Small: —, Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%

Reasoning Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts14231364
ARC-AGI-240.1%—
ARC-AGI-184%—
CritPt8.3%—
Chess Puzzles18%—
Mystery Game Puzzles6%—
Epoch Capabilities Index150.15—

Math Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Math14591359
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)46.3%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202590%—
ProofBench6%—

Knowledge Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Expert14421358
GPQA Diamond88.5%—
SimpleQA Verified19.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.1%

Multimodal Not comparable

Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62), Nova 2 Lite: —

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Vision1235—

Multilingual Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English14021337
LMArena Chinese14651364
LMArena French14361381
LMArena German14051343
LMArena Japanese14051271
LMArena Korean13631284
LMArena Russian13911343
LMArena Spanish14281373

Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following13991335

Long Context Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query14011335

Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads

Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

BenchmarkInkling-SmallNova 2 Lite
LMArena Text14141362
LMArena Creative Writing13311291
LMArena Multi-Turn14181338
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1491—

Frequently asked questions

Is Inkling-Small better than Nova 2 Lite?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or Nova 2 Lite?

Inkling-Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Nova 2 Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Inkling-Small or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Nova 2 Lite does, with 1M tokens against 524K.

How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

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