# Granite 4.2 8B vs Inkling-Small (slim)

> Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) to Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small.md (~9,300 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-inkling-small
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-10
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) on agent readiness against Granite 4.2 8B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Granite 4.2 8B leads on reach and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Granite 4.2 8B: C 61, rank #66 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-4-2-8b.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 8B, good for Agents that want a documented, signed, Apache 2.0 reasoning model with tool calling on a 16 GB machine Ahead on Reach, 95 against 55; Documentation and upkeep, 92 against 87.
- 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 8B | Inkling-Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 95 | 55 |
| Risk (20%) | 55 | 70 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 85 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 92 | 87 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite 4.2 8B | Inkling-Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2026-07-31 |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Granite 4.2 8B +40: Granite 4.2 8B 95 (Memory 30, IBM's own 4-bit MLX build granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx is 4.95 GB, and 4.95 GB × 1.2 = 5.9 GB, within 8 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 8B 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.)
- Documentation and upkeep, Granite 4.2 8B +5: Granite 4.2 8B 92 (Model card 17, Intended use (best for), limitations (ethical considerations and limitations), architecture, parameters (8B), context length (128K native) and 12…); Inkling-Small 87 (Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off, counting Thinking Machines' own model card page.)