# Granite 4.2 30B vs Inkling-Small (slim)

> Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) to Granite 4.2 30B's 61 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 30B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 30B leads on reach. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Granite 4.2 30B: C 61, rank #65 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-4-2-30b.min.md
- Inkling-Small: B 67, rank #13 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling-small.min.md
- Granite 4.2 30B, good for Agents that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 24 GB card Ahead on Reach, 90 against 55.
- Inkling-Small, good for Teams with 256 GB or more of datacentre GPU memory who want an open multimodal agent model with audio input and adjustable thinking. Ahead on Risk, 70 against 55.

| Category | Granite 4.2 30B | Inkling-Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 90 | 55 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 70 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 85 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 87 | 87 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 30B | Inkling-Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Last release | 2026-09-04 | 2026-07-31 |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Granite 4.2 30B +35: Granite 4.2 30B 90 (Memory 25, IBM's own 4-bit MLX build granite-4.2-30b-q4-mlx is 16.47 GB, and 16.47 GB × 1.2 = 19.8 GB, which fits 24 GB but not 16 GB.); Inkling-Small 55 (Memory 5 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build is Thinking Machines' NVFP4 at 170.8 GB, about 205 GB with a fifth added, so it needs 256 GB.)
- Risk, Inkling-Small +15: Granite 4.2 30B 55 (File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25).); Inkling-Small 70 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.)