# Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling 2 Small

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Granite 4.2 8B and Inkling 2 Small across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-2-small
- Last updated: November 7, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Inkling 2 Small leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Inkling 2 Small has the higher overall point estimate 59.06 to 26.38. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 14.2 for Granite 4.2 8B and 59.9 for Inkling 2 Small.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 85.1%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Inkling 2 Small also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 26.38 | 59.06 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 25 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.30 / $1.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 14.2 (Estimated · #127/131)
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 59.9 (Supported · #26/131)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 85.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | Coming soon | 90.9% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 85% | Coming soon |
| JobBench | Coming soon | 70.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 14.2 (Estimated · #151/157)
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 59.7 (Supported · #20/157)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | 82.2% | Inkling 2 Small |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | 81.2% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 85.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | Coming soon | 38.8% | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 72.1% | Coming soon |
| PostTrainBench v1.2 | Coming soon | 31.9% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 54.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 86.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LongBench v2 | Coming soon | 70.6% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 86.6 (#12/59)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 87.7% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |
| Chartography (no tools) | Coming soon | 36.7% | Coming soon |
| Chartography (tools) | Coming soon | 80.4% | Coming soon |
| BabyVision | Coming soon | 68.6% | Coming soon |
| BabyVision w/ Python | Coming soon | 93.7% | Coming soon |
| ScreenSpot Pro | Coming soon | 83.8% | Coming soon |
| PerceptionBench | Coming soon | 64.7% | Coming soon |
| MathVision | Coming soon | 92.8% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 27.5 (Supported · #165/178)
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 60.4 (Estimated · #46/178)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | 93% | Inkling 2 Small |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 93.0% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#45/157)
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling 2 Small public-lane score: 85.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 95.8% | Coming soon |
| Apex | Coming soon | 63.5% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Granite 4.2 8B or Inkling 2 Small?

Inkling 2 Small has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Granite 4.2 8B and Inkling 2 Small?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 14.2 for Granite 4.2 8B and 59.9 for Inkling 2 Small.

### How many benchmarks does Granite 4.2 8B cover on BenchLM?

Granite 4.2 8B currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Inkling 2 Small cover on BenchLM?

Inkling 2 Small currently has 25 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

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

## Explore More

- [Granite 4.2 8B profile](/models/granite-4-2-8b)
- [Inkling 2 Small profile](/models/inkling-2-small)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)