# Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling-Small

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

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

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

## Quick Verdict

Inkling-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-Small has the higher overall point estimate 53.6 to 33.4. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in knowledge, where the averages are 30.6 for Granite 4.2 8B and 55.1 for Inkling-Small.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 64.7%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Inkling-Small also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 33.4 | 53.6 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 28 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $0.58 / $1.44 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 36.9 (Supported · #77/127)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 64.7% | Inkling-Small |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | 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: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 37.7 (Supported · #71/150)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | 80.2% | Inkling-Small |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | 55.9% | Inkling-Small |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 64.7% | Inkling-Small |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | 48.7% | Inkling-Small |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.9% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 82.2% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 55 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 40.1% | Coming soon |
| CritPt | Coming soon | 8.3% | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-1 | Coming soon | 84.00% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 67.5 (#36/54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | 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: Inkling-Small
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 55.1 (Supported · #59/184)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | 89.5% | Inkling-Small |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | 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: Inkling-Small
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 93.3 (#9/146)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | 82.2% | Inkling-Small |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 69.8 (#5/12)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 95.5% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 90.2% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | Coming soon | 46.316% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | Coming soon | 17.073% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

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

Inkling-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-Small?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 30.6 for Granite 4.2 8B and 55.1 for Inkling-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-Small cover on BenchLM?

Inkling-Small currently has 28 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-Small vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-inkling-small)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Inkling-Small vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-inkling-small)

## Explore More

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