# Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling-Small

> Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 5.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Inkling-Small in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 39.0 to 25.5.
- Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper at $0.06 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 46.5 |
| Rank | 143 | 57 |
| Context | 131K | 524K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.45 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138)
- Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1451 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1408 |
| SciCode | — | 48.7% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130)
- Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | 1424 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 40.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 84% |
| CritPt | — | 8.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 18% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 6% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 150.13 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 90% |
| ProofBench | — | 6% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1453 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144)
- Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | 1442 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 19.1% |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1235 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173)
- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | 1400 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1458 |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | 1392 |
| LMArena French | — | 1438 |
| LMArena German | — | 1412 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1355 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1426 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183)
- Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | 1397 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154)
- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | 1401 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183)
- Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1413 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | 1330 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | 1420 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1491 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 40.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.2 8B costs 5.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Inkling-Small?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Inkling-Small better for coding?

Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.3 versus 39.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

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

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Inkling-Small share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.