Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling 2 Small
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 8B by IBM or Inkling 2 Small by Thinking Machines? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-06.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling 2 Small scores 25.5 points higher (30.6 vs 5.1) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($792 vs $46.9; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling 2 Small when you need intelligence above 5.1, and Granite 4.2 8B when 5.1 is enough.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling 2 Small | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.1 | 30.6 | +500.0% Inkling 2 Small is 6.0× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.88 | $791.81 | +1589.0% Inkling 2 Small is 17× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.63s | 19.24s | −6.7% Inkling 2 Small is 6.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.06 / $0.25 | $0.30 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Inkling 2 Small vs Granite 4.2 8B: 500.0% more intelligence, 1589.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 6.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Low) scores 18.60 for $39.6.
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
Granite 4.2 8BInkling 2 SmallToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-8b/inkling-2-small · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-8b/inkling-2-small?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill