# Gemma 4 12B vs Inkling-Small

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Gemma 4 12B and Inkling-Small across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Inkling-Small if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Gemma 4 12B only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Inkling-Small leads overall 59.25 to 42.72.
- The clearest category separation is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 26.1 for Gemma 4 12B and 48.8 for Inkling-Small.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is HLE w/o tools in Knowledge, with scores of 5.2% and 31.6%.
- Inkling-Small also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Google | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 256K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 42.72 | 59.25 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 25 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.58 / $1.44 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 44.9 (Estimated · #87/152)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 36.9 (Supported · #128/152)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 64.7% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.4% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 79.6% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | Coming soon | 54.4% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 55.1% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 44 (Estimated · #95/151)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 43.8 (Supported · #97/151)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 72.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 80.2% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 55.9% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 64.7% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 48.7% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.9% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 26.1 (#44/48)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 48.8 (#39/48)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 69.1% | 74% | Inkling-Small |
| MathVision | 79.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 81.3% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 77.4% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 33.7 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 42.7 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BBH | 53% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MRCRv2 | 43.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 40.1% | Coming soon |
| CritPt | Coming soon | 8.3% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Inkling-Small
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 38.9 (Supported · #141/183)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 56.5 (Supported · #46/183)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 78.8% | 89.5% | Inkling-Small |
| GPQA-D | 78.8% | 89.5% | Inkling-Small |
| MMLU-Pro | 77.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 5.2% | 31.6% | Inkling-Small |
| MMMLU | 83.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 47.8% | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 83.6% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 90.1 (#21/123)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.6 (#25/123)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Gemma 4 12B public-lane score: 57.6 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Gemma 4 12B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 77.5% | 95.5% | Inkling-Small |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Gemma 4 12B or Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Gemma 4 12B and Inkling-Small?

The widest category gap is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 26.1 for Gemma 4 12B and 48.8 for Inkling-Small.

### How many benchmarks does Gemma 4 12B cover on BenchLM?

Gemma 4 12B currently has 12 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

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

Inkling-Small currently has 25 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-26b-a4b)
- [Inkling-Small vs Gemma 4 26B A4B](/compare/gemma-4-26b-a4b-vs-inkling-small)
- [Gemma 4 12B vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-12b-vs-gemma-4-31b)
- [Inkling-Small vs Gemma 4 31B](/compare/gemma-4-31b-vs-inkling-small)

## Explore More

- [Gemma 4 12B profile](/models/gemma-4-12b)
- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)