# Granite 4.2 3B vs Inkling

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

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

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 2
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Evidence is too thin for a benchmark verdict: Granite 4.2 3B and Inkling share only 2 sourced benchmark rows.

## Summary

- Only 2 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 has the larger published context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Independent public score (not head-to-head) | null | 60.28 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 9 | 21 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $1.87 / $4.68 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 38.3 (Supported · #122/152)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| τ³-bench results | 45.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 63.8% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.1% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 74.1% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 47.6% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 41.1 (Supported · #111/151)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 69.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 24.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 77.6% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 54.3% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 63.8% | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | Coming soon | 4.1% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.5% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 77.6% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 49.2 (#38/48)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | 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: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: 37.7 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling public-lane score: 74.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Knowledge

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 57.4 (Supported · #43/183)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 54.8% | 87.9% | Inkling |
| MMLU-Pro | 67.8% | Coming soon | 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 |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 87.1% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 86.3% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 85.2 (#44/123)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 74.3% | 79.8% | Inkling |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Insufficient shared evidence
- Granite 4.2 3B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 78.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 3B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 97.1% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

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

Not yet. The models share only 2 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 vs Granite 4.2 8B](/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling)
- [Granite 4.2 3B vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-granite-4-2-3b)
- [Inkling vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-inkling)

## Explore More

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