# Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct vs ZAYA1-8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and ZAYA1-8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/mellum2-12b-a2-5b-instruct-vs-zaya1-8b
- Last updated: September 4, 2026

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

## Quick Verdict

Pick ZAYA1-8B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- ZAYA1-8B leads overall 58 to 43.
- The clearest category separation is in knowledge, where the averages are 48.1 for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and 45.3 for ZAYA1-8B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is GPQA in Knowledge, with scores of 40.9% and 71%.
- ZAYA1-8B also has the larger context window at 131K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | JetBrains | Zyphra |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 131K |
| Overall Score | null | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 6 | 11 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct public-lane score: 47.8 (Estimated · #82/151)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 48.1 (Estimated · #79/151)

| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BFCL v4 | 44.2% | 39.2% | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct public-lane score: Coming soon
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 37.2% | 65.8% | ZAYA1-8B |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct public-lane score: 48.1 (Estimated · #103/181)
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 45.3 (Estimated · #116/181)

| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMLU-Redux | 78.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA | 40.9% | 71% | ZAYA1-8B |
| GPQA-D | 40.9% | 71.0% | ZAYA1-8B |
| MMLU-Pro | Coming soon | 74.2% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct public-lane score: Coming soon
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 35.6 (#108/120)

| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | 75.8% | 85.6% | ZAYA1-8B |
| IFBench | Coming soon | 52.6% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct public-lane score: Coming soon
- ZAYA1-8B public-lane score: 62.6 (Unranked · 4 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct | ZAYA1-8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 89.1% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 71.6% | Coming soon |
| IMOAnswerBench | Coming soon | 59.3% | Coming soon |
| Apex | Coming soon | 32.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct or ZAYA1-8B?

ZAYA1-8B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and ZAYA1-8B?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 48.1 for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and 45.3 for ZAYA1-8B.

### How many benchmarks does Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct cover on BenchLM?

Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct currently has 6 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does ZAYA1-8B cover on BenchLM?

ZAYA1-8B currently has 11 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct vs Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking](/compare/mellum2-12b-a2-5b-instruct-vs-mellum2-12b-a2-5b-thinking)
- [ZAYA1-8B vs Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Thinking](/compare/mellum2-12b-a2-5b-thinking-vs-zaya1-8b)
- [Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct vs ZAYA1-74B-Preview](/compare/mellum2-12b-a2-5b-instruct-vs-zaya1-74b-preview)
- [ZAYA1-8B vs ZAYA1-74B-Preview](/compare/zaya1-74b-preview-vs-zaya1-8b)

## Explore More

- [Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct profile](/models/mellum2-12b-a2-5b-instruct)
- [ZAYA1-8B profile](/models/zaya1-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)