# Inkling-Small vs Yi-Lightning

> Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/inkling-small-vs-yi-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 8 categories and Yi-Lightning in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Inkling-Small leads 43.6 to 27.4.
- Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | 01.AI |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 37.1 |
| Rank | 63 | 209 |
| Context | 524K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.45 | — |
| Output $/M | $1.20 | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)
- Yi-Lightning: 27.4 (#320)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | 1312 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 12.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1409 | — |
| SciCode | 48.7% | — |

## Reasoning

- Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)
- Yi-Lightning: 25.9 (#139)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1423 | 1302 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| CritPt | 8.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.15 | — |

## Math

- Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)
- Yi-Lightning: 36.2 (#172)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1459 | 1300 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | — |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |

## Knowledge

- Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)
- Yi-Lightning: 35.4 (#185)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | 1286 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |

## Multimodal

- Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)
- Yi-Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |

## Multilingual

- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)
- Yi-Lightning: 42.2 (#196)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1402 | 1269 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1465 | 1320 |
| LMArena French | 1436 | 1305 |
| LMArena German | 1405 | 1267 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1405 | 1228 |
| LMArena Korean | 1363 | 1192 |
| LMArena Russian | 1391 | 1255 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1428 | 1315 |

## Instruction Following

- Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)
- Yi-Lightning: 67.4 (#196)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1399 | 1278 |

## Long Context

- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)
- Yi-Lightning: 39.4 (#181)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | 1297 |

## Writing & Preference

- Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)
- Yi-Lightning: 50.2 (#184)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1414 | 1302 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1418 | 1311 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Inkling-Small better than Yi-Lightning?

Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Inkling-Small or Yi-Lightning better for coding?

Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and Yi-Lightning share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Yi-Lightning has 18.