# Inkling-Small vs MAI-Thinking-1

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Inkling-Small and MAI-Thinking-1 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/inkling-small-vs-mai-thinking-1
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 9
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Inkling-Small if you want the stronger benchmark profile. MAI-Thinking-1 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Inkling-Small leads overall 59.25 to 52.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 36.9 for Inkling-Small and 50.3 for MAI-Thinking-1.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.0 in Agentic, with scores of 64.7% and 46%.
- Inkling-Small also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Thinking Machines Lab | Microsoft |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Hybrid | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 256K |
| Overall Score | 59.25 | 52 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 25 | 14 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.58 / $1.44 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 36.9 (Supported · #128/152)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 50.3 (Estimated · #50/152)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 64.7% | 46% | Inkling-Small |
| BrowseComp | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | 54.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 55.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 43.8 (Supported · #97/151)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 50.4 (Estimated · #57/151)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.2% | 73.5% | Inkling-Small |
| SWE-bench Pro | 55.9% | 52.8% | Inkling-Small |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 64.7% | 46.0% | Inkling-Small |
| SciCode | 48.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 85.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | Coming soon | 87.7% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 48.8 (#39/48)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 74% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | 81.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 42.7 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CritPt | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Graphwalks BFS 128K | Coming soon | 90% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 56.5 (Supported · #46/183)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 52.3 (Estimated · #66/183)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.5% | 84.2% | Inkling-Small |
| GPQA-D | 89.5% | 84.2% | Inkling-Small |
| HLE | 47.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 31.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 83.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 85% | Coming soon |
| SimpleQA | Coming soon | 31% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: MAI-Thinking-1
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.6 (#25/123)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 94.7 (#1/123)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 82.2% | 85% | MAI-Thinking-1 |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 73.4 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | MAI-Thinking-1 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 95.5% | 94.5% | Inkling-Small |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 90.2% | 84.9% | Inkling-Small |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 97% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Inkling-Small or MAI-Thinking-1?

Inkling-Small is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Inkling-Small and MAI-Thinking-1?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 36.9 for Inkling-Small and 50.3 for MAI-Thinking-1.

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

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

### How many benchmarks does MAI-Thinking-1 cover on BenchLM?

MAI-Thinking-1 currently has 14 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Inkling-Small vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-mai-thinking-1)
- [Inkling-Small vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-inkling-small)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-mai-thinking-1)

## Explore More

- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 profile](/models/mai-thinking-1)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)