Inkling 2 Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Which is better for the money: Inkling 2 Small by Thinking Machines or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA? 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 25.1 points higher (30.6 vs 5.5) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($792 vs $227; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling 2 Small when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling 2 Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.6 | 5.5 | −82.0% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 82.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $791.81 | $227.02 | −71.3% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 71.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.92s | 9.28s | −55.6% Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is 55.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.00 | $0.06 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Inkling 2 Small: 82.0% less intelligence, 71.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (Medium) scores 38.20 for $190.
Inkling 2 SmallNemotron 3.5 LightningToday'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/inkling-2-small/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-2-small/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill