Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Ling 2.6 Flash
36
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
59
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ling 2.6 Flash only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Coding
+42.9 difference
Knowledge
+1.4 difference
Inst. Following
+19.5 difference
Ling 2.6 Flash
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking
$null / $null
N/A
209.5 t/s
N/A
1.07s
N/A
262K
128K
Pick Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ling 2.6 Flash only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 59 to 36. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 69.9 against 27. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 59% to 57.6%. Ling 2.6 Flash does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ling 2.6 Flash is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Ling 2.6 Flash gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 128K for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 59 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 59% and 57.6%.
Ling 2.6 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 59 versus 57.6. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69.9 versus 27. Ling 2.6 Flash stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 76.5 versus 57. Ling 2.6 Flash stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
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