# GLM-5.3 vs Inkling-Small

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for GLM-5.3 and Inkling-Small across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/glm-5-3-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: September 28, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 8
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick GLM-5.3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Inkling-Small only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- GLM-5.3 leads overall 65.44 to 55.66.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 67.4 for GLM-5.3 and 35.4 for Inkling-Small.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 88.2% and 64.7%.
- GLM-5.3 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Z.AI | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 65.44 | 55.66 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 24 | 25 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.58 / $1.44 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 67.4 (Supported · #9/117)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 35.4 (Supported · #65/117)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.2% | 64.7% | GLM-5.3 |
| terminalBench3 | 28.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 84.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ExploitGym | 15.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | 73.0% | 54.4% | GLM-5.3 |
| AutomationBench | 48.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | 28.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | 62.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 71.5% | 55.1% | GLM-5.3 |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.4% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 79.6% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 56.8 (Supported · #24/142)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 40.1 (Supported · #60/142)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.2% | 64.7% | GLM-5.3 |
| terminalBench3 | 28.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | 66.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | 58% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | 19.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE | 78.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | 42.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PostTrain Bench | 39.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | 60.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | 30.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 80.5% | 85.9% | Inkling-Small |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 95.4% | 82.2% | GLM-5.3 |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 80.2% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 55.9% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 48.7% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 77.1 (#11/27)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 51.4 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 40.1% | Coming soon |
| CritPt | Coming soon | 8.3% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 49.8 (#40/50)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 74% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 81.3% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 77.4% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 61.9 (Supported · #35/168)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 54.1 (Supported · #48/168)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.1% | 83.6% | GLM-5.3 |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 86.8% | 85.6% | GLM-5.3 |
| GPQA | Coming soon | 89.5% | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 89.5% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 47.8% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 31.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.2 (#20/124)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.5 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 95.5% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, GLM-5.3 or Inkling-Small?

GLM-5.3 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between GLM-5.3 and Inkling-Small?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 67.4 for GLM-5.3 and 35.4 for Inkling-Small.

### How many benchmarks does GLM-5.3 cover on BenchLM?

GLM-5.3 currently has 24 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

- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.2](/compare/glm-5-2-vs-glm-5-3)
- [Inkling-Small vs GLM-5.2](/compare/glm-5-2-vs-inkling-small)
- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/glm-5-3-vs-glm-5-3-flash)
- [Inkling-Small vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/glm-5-3-flash-vs-inkling-small)

## Explore More

- [GLM-5.3 profile](/models/glm-5-3)
- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)