# Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling

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

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

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

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

## Summary

- Inkling has the higher overall point estimate 52.61 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 54.6 for Inkling.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 20.6% and 63.8%.
- Granite 4.2 8B is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Inkling also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 128K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 33.4 | 52.61 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 14 | 24 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $1.87 / $4.68 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 15.7 (Estimated · #113/127)
- Inkling public-lane score: 37.4 (Supported · #73/127)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 63.8% | Inkling |
| τ³-bench results | 58.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | 52.4% | Coming soon | 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 |
| CWE-bench v1 | Coming soon | 37.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 17.2 (Estimated · #125/150)
- Inkling public-lane score: 33.9 (Supported · #82/150)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 47.7% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Pro | 19.1% | 54.3% | Inkling |
| SWE Multilingual | 30.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 20.6% | 63.8% | Inkling |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 73.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 36.1% | Coming soon | 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 |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 56.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling public-lane score: 79 (#14/28)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 67.5 (#35/54)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | 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 |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Inkling
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 30.6 (Supported · #154/184)
- Inkling public-lane score: 54.6 (Supported · #63/184)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 64.1% | 87.9% | Inkling |
| MMLU-Pro | 74.0% | 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: Inkling
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: 86.5 (#41/146)
- Inkling public-lane score: 87.6 (#35/146)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 79.3% | 79.8% | Inkling |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Granite 4.2 8B public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 58.3 (#11/12)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 86.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 97.1% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | Coming soon | 33.333% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | Coming soon | 4.878% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

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

Inkling 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?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 30.6 for Granite 4.2 8B and 54.6 for Inkling.

### 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 cover on BenchLM?

Inkling currently has 24 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 vs Granite 4.2 30B](/compare/granite-4-2-30b-vs-inkling)
- [Granite 4.2 8B vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-granite-4-2-8b)
- [Inkling vs Granite 4.2 3B](/compare/granite-4-2-3b-vs-inkling)

## Explore More

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