# Inkling vs ZAYA1-8B (slim)

> Inkling scores 64.7 (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-vs-zaya1-8b.md (~8,700 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-vs-zaya1-8b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Inkling scores 64.7 (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: B 64.7, rank #19 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling.min.md
- ZAYA1-8B: C 61, rank #85 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zaya1-8b.min.md
- 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; 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 50.

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

| Fact (where they differ) | Inkling | ZAYA1-8B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Thinking Machines Lab | Zyphra |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-07-02 |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Inkling +37: Inkling 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 +30: 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.); 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 +25: Inkling 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 +15: Inkling 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.)