# Granite 4.2 30B vs Inkling (slim)

> Inkling scores 64.7 (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 scores 64.7 (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: B 64.7, rank #19 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling.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 50.
- Inkling, good for Agents calling a hosted open multimodal model with audio input, or teams with a multi-GPU datacentre node who want to run it themselves. Ahead on Risk, 70 against 55.

| Category | Granite 4.2 30B | Inkling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 90 | 50 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 70 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 85 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 87 | 87 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 30B | Inkling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Last release | 2026-09-04 | 2026-07-23 |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Granite 4.2 30B +40: 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 50 (Memory 0 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build is Thinking Machines' NVFP4 at 592.0 GB, about 710 GB with a fifth added, far above 256 GB.)
- Risk, Inkling +15: Granite 4.2 30B 55 (File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25).); Inkling 70 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.)