# Inkling 2 Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B (slim)

> Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B scores 64.7 (B) 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-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b.md (~10,750 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b
- 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
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Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B scores 64.7 (B) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C), and leads in every scored category. 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
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B: B 64.7, rank #20 of 161 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nemotron-3-5-lightning-30b-a3b.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.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B, good for Agents on one 24 to 32 GB GPU or Mac that want a fast tool-calling reasoning model with long context and a permissive licence Ahead on Reach, 85 against 40; Risk, 75 against 65; Agent interface, 90 against 85; Documentation and upkeep, 75 against 67.

| Category | Inkling 2 Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 40 | 85 |
| Risk (20%) | 65 | 75 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 90 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 67 | 75 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Inkling 2 Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Thinking Machines Lab | NVIDIA |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| Last release | 2026-11-12 | 2026-08-11 |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reach, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B +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.); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B 85 (Memory earns 25, since ggml-org's 18.9 GB Q4_0 GGUF and Ollama's 19 GB nvfp4 build both need under 24 GB with the fifth added.)
- Risk, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B +10: Inkling 2 Small 65 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B 75 (File safety earns 25, safetensors only with no Python files, and nothing from the repository runs to load it or parse its output.)
- Documentation and upkeep, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B +8: Inkling 2 Small 67 (Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off.); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B 75 (The model card earns 20, all seven items with limitations in the linked subcard.)
- Agent interface, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B +5: Inkling 2 Small 85 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.); Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B 90 (The chat template earns 20, a Jinja file in the repository.)