# Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Inkling

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and Inkling across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite-vs-inkling
- Last updated: September 4, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 8
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Inkling if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Inkling leads overall 62.78 to 60.5.
- The clearest category separation is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 76.1 for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and 48.7 for Inkling.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.0 in Agentic, with scores of 54% and 63.8%.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 60.5 | 62.78 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 10 | 21 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $1.87 / $4.68 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: 43.4 (Estimated · #104/151)
- Inkling public-lane score: 40.7 (Supported · #119/151)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 54% | 63.8% | Inkling |
| OSWorld-Verified | 74% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 50.2% | 47.6% | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.1% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 74.1% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: 43.6 (Supported · #121/183)
- Inkling public-lane score: 41.4 (Supported · #132/183)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 54.0% | 63.8% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Pro | 54.2% | 54.3% | Inkling |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 79.0% | 85.5% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 75.0% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 77.6% | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | Coming soon | 4.1% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: 76.1 (#16/48)
- Inkling public-lane score: 48.7 (#38/48)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 73.5% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 82% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 78.1% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: 60.8 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Inkling public-lane score: 73.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MRCRv2 | 72.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Inkling
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: 53 (Supported · #71/181)
- Inkling public-lane score: 58.5 (Supported · #45/181)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 83.8% | 87.1% | Inkling |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 85.8% | 86.3% | Inkling |
| GPQA | Coming soon | 87.9% | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 87.9% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 46% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 30% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 85.2 (#43/120)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 79.8% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 78.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 97.1% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite or Inkling?

Inkling is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and Inkling?

The widest category gap is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 76.1 for Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and 48.7 for Inkling.

### How many benchmarks does Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite cover on BenchLM?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite currently has 10 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Inkling cover on BenchLM?

Inkling currently has 21 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Inkling-Small](/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite-vs-inkling-small)
- [Inkling vs Inkling-Small](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite)
- [Inkling vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-inkling)

## Explore More

- [Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite profile](/models/gemini-3-5-flash-lite)
- [Inkling profile](/models/inkling)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)