# Granite 4.2 3B vs Inkling-Small

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 3B and Inkling-Small across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 3
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Evidence is too thin for a benchmark verdict: Granite 4.2 3B and Inkling-Small share only 3 sourced benchmark rows.

## Summary

- Only 3 shared sourced benchmark rows are available. That is not enough for a broad capability verdict, so this mirror does not name an overall winner.
- Granite 4.2 3B has the lower published output-token price.
- Inkling-Small has the larger published context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Independent public score (not head-to-head) | null | 59.25 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 9 | 25 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.58 / $1.44 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 36.9 (Supported · #128/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ³-bench results | 45.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| 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: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 43.8 (Supported · #97/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 24.1% | 48.7% | Inkling-Small |
| 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 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.9% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 48.8 (#39/48)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | 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 |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: 37.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 42.7 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 40.1% | Coming soon |
| CritPt | Coming soon | 8.3% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 56.5 (Supported · #46/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 54.8% | 89.5% | Inkling-Small |
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | Coming soon | 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 |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 83.6% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.6 (#25/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 74.3% | 82.2% | Inkling-Small |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 95.5% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Is there enough evidence to pick between Granite 4.2 3B and Inkling-Small?

Not yet. The models share only 3 sourced benchmark rows, so this mirror reports the available measurements and metadata without naming a broad winner.

### What can I compare safely on this page?

Published pricing, context windows, model type, and individual shared benchmark rows are directly comparable. Independent overall scores and non-overlapping benchmark coverage are labeled separately and should not be read as a controlled head-to-head result.

## Related Comparisons

- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Inkling-Small vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small)
- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Inkling-Small vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-inkling-small)

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 3B profile](/models/granite-4-2-3b)
- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)