# Inkling-Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Inkling-Small and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/inkling-small-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4
- Last updated: September 24, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 9
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Inkling-Small if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 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 55.63 to 19.1.
- The clearest category separation is in knowledge, where the averages are 54.1 for Inkling-Small and 20.7 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 in Agentic, with scores of 64.7% and 23.5%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Thinking Machines Lab | NVIDIA |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Hybrid | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 55.63 | 19.1 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 25 | 13 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.58 / $1.44 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 35.6 (Supported · #53/105)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 7.3 (Estimated · #104/105)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 64.7% | 23.5% | Inkling-Small |
| BrowseComp | 77.4% | 36.8% | Inkling-Small |
| 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 |
| PinchBench | Coming soon | 83.4% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 9.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 40.3 (Supported · #55/135)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 11.4 (Estimated · #135/135)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.2% | 52.8% | Inkling-Small |
| SWE-bench Pro | 55.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 64.7% | 23.5% | Inkling-Small |
| SciCode | 48.7% | 31.4% | Inkling-Small |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 85.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 36.5% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 51.3 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 55.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CritPt | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 48.8 (#40/50)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | 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 |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 54.1 (Supported · #43/158)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 20.7 (Estimated · #154/158)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.5% | 75.6% | Inkling-Small |
| GPQA-D | 89.5% | 75.6% | Inkling-Small |
| HLE | 47.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 31.6% | 10.5% | Inkling-Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 83.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 81.6% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Inkling-Small
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.2 (#20/124)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: 68.5 (#67/124)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 82.2% | 72.9% | Inkling-Small |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.5 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 95.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 90.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

Inkling-Small is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Inkling-Small and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 54.1 for Inkling-Small and 20.7 for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4.

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

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

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Inkling-Small vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Inkling-Small vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-inkling-small)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)

## Explore More

- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B NVFP4 profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b-nvfp4)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)