# Inkling-Small vs ZAYA1-8B (slim)

> Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) to ZAYA1-8B'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/inkling-small-vs-zaya1-8b.md (~9,100 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-small-vs-zaya1-8b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-small-vs-zaya1-8b
- 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
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Inkling-Small scores 67 (B) on agent readiness against ZAYA1-8B's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. ZAYA1-8B leads on reach. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Inkling-Small: B 67, rank #13 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling-small.min.md
- ZAYA1-8B: C 61, rank #85 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zaya1-8b.min.md
- 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; Agent interface, 85 against 60; Documentation and upkeep, 87 against 50.
- ZAYA1-8B, good for People who want a small, fast reasoning model for maths and code and can live without tool calling Ahead on Reach, 80 against 55.

| Category | Inkling-Small | ZAYA1-8B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 55 | 80 |
| Risk (20%) | 70 | 55 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 60 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 87 | 50 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Inkling-Small | ZAYA1-8B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Thinking Machines Lab | Zyphra |
| Last release | 2026-07-31 | 2026-07-02 |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Inkling-Small +37: Inkling-Small 87 (Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off, counting Thinking Machines' own model card page.); ZAYA1-8B 50 (Model card 5, Intended use and the parameter counts are on the card.)
- Reach, ZAYA1-8B +25: 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.); ZAYA1-8B 80 (Memory 30, the smallest build from Zyphra is the MXFP4-Experts repository, 5.85 GB, and 5.85 GB × 1.2 = 7.0 GB, within 16 GB.)
- Agent interface, Inkling-Small +25: Inkling-Small 85 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.); ZAYA1-8B 60 (Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (10,700 characters).)
- Risk, Inkling-Small +15: Inkling-Small 70 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.); ZAYA1-8B 55 (File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository.)