Inkling-Small vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B): Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Inkling-Small is developed by Thinking Machines Lab, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comes from NVIDIA. Inkling-Small was released in July 2026, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) followed a month later in August 2026. Inkling-Small is the larger model at roughly 276 billion parameters, against 30 billion for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B).
The two models share 8 published benchmarks. Inkling-Small leads on 8 of them. The widest gaps are on BrowseComp, where Inkling-Small scores 77.4% against 37.0%; Terminal-Bench 2.1, where Inkling-Small scores 64.7% against 24.6%. Averaged across everything we track, Inkling-Small sits at 60.3% and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) at 45.3%.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is the cheaper API at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens, roughly 6 times cheaper than Inkling-Small at $0.30 and $1.20. Both accept a context window of about 256K tokens. Inkling-Small accepts text, images, and audio as input, while Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) accepts text. On tooling, only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports function calling and only Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) offers structured output.
| Characteristic | Inkling-Small | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Thinking Machines Lab | NVIDIA |
| Release Date | July 30, 2026 | August 11, 2026 |
| Parameters | 276B | 30B |
| Multimodal | Yes | No |
| Context (input) | 256K | 262K |
| Context (output) | 256K | 262K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.30 | $0.05 |
| Output Price / 1M | $1.20 | $0.20 |
| Average Score | 60.3% | 45.3% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| BrowseComp | 77.4% | 37.0% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 64.7% | 24.6% |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 80.2% | 51.6% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 31.6% | 11.7% |
| SciCode | 48.7% | 32.6% |
| GPQA | 89.5% | 75.0% |
| IFBench | 82.2% | 72.0% |
| Tau3 Banking | 15.5% | 9.3% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) leads in 2 out of 5 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Inkling-Small — 0.6, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.
On SWE-Bench, both models are nearly equal: Inkling-Small — 0.8, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is 6.0x cheaper: input $0.05/1M vs $0.30/1M tokens.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) supports a larger context: 262K vs 256K tokens.
Both models were released around the same time: 7/30/2026 and 8/11/2026.
More About These Models
Related Comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Which model is cheaper — Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
Which has a larger context window — Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B)?
The Inkling-Small and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Inkling-Small or Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.