# Inkling 2 Small vs LFM3-1.7B (slim)

> LFM3-1.7B scores 61 (C) to Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-lfm3-1-7b.md (~9,300 tokens) · this version ~630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-lfm3-1-7b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-lfm3-1-7b
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-12
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

LFM3-1.7B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Inkling 2 Small leads on risk. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Inkling 2 Small: C 58.8, rank #102 of 161 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling-2-small.min.md
- LFM3-1.7B: C 61, rank #69 of 161 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lfm3-1-7b.min.md
- Inkling 2 Small, good for Teams with 512 GB or more of datacentre GPU memory who want Thinking Machines' newest open multimodal agent model and can run a runtime's pre-release image. Ahead on Risk, 65 against 40.
- LFM3-1.7B, good for Agents on a laptop, phone or small server that need tool calling and a long context from a model under 2 GB at 4 bits Ahead on Reach, 85 against 40; Agent interface, 100 against 85.

| Category | Inkling 2 Small | LFM3-1.7B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 40 | 85 |
| Risk (20%) | 65 | 40 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 100 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 67 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Inkling 2 Small | LFM3-1.7B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Thinking Machines Lab | Liquid AI |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | LFM Open License v1.0 (free commercial use below $10M annual revenue) |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-12 | 2026-11-09 |

Why the edge:
- Reach, LFM3-1.7B +45: Inkling 2 Small 40 (Memory 0 of 30, the smallest build is Thinking Machines' NVFP4 checkpoint at 393.5 GB, about 472 GB with a fifth added, above the 256 GB line.); LFM3-1.7B 85 (Memory 30, Liquid's Q4_K_M GGUF is 1.10 GB, and 1.10 GB × 1.2 = 1.3 GB, which fits 8 GB, well inside the 16 GB line.)
- Risk, Inkling 2 Small +25: Inkling 2 Small 65 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.); LFM3-1.7B 40 (File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25).)
- Agent interface, LFM3-1.7B +15: Inkling 2 Small 85 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.); LFM3-1.7B 100 (Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (12,129 characters), with roles, tools, deferred tools, tool results and the thinking switch.)