Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads Gemini 2.5 Flash on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 25.7 to 15.5, and Inkling Small costs 2.1x less per output token ($1.20 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 46 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 2.5 Flash or Inkling Small: which to pick
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Gemini 2.5 Flash has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash for a larger context window (1.05M against 524K tokens) and work measured by MedCode (Vals AI) or LMArena Text: science, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 46
- Gemini 2.5 Flash only
- 27
- Inkling Small only
- 38
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 25.7 against 15.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a AA Agentic Index result, 23.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Inkling Small has a GPQA Diamond result, 83.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Inkling Small has a MMLU Pro result, 85.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 2.5 Flash has a Design Arena: websites result, 1074.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash takes 1.05M tokens against 524K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling Small
Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.0015, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Inkling Small
Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.466, Inkling Small $0.16.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 2.5 Flash not benchmarked, Inkling Small 27.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 14.1 points apart on average over 9 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI: Gemini 2.5 Flash 33.3% against Inkling Small 84.0%, 50.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 2.5 Flash $2.50 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 2.1x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 2.5 Flash takes 1.05M tokens, Inkling Small 524K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Bars | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 9 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 1 | ||
| General | 13 | 13 | ||
| All shared boards | 17 | 29 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 28.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.9 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.2% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 13.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 9.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 69.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 17.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1423 | 1450 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1425 | 1447 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1398 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1410 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 15.5 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 142.9 | 150.3 | Inkling Small |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 23.5 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 41.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 31.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| BALROG | 33.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $549 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 56.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| BrowseComp-Plus | 39.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index09
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 83.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 79.0% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 12.1% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ARC-AGI | 33.3% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 2.5% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| SimpleBench | 41.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1422 | 1423 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1426 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1420 | 1429 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1245 | 1251 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1244 | 1257 | Inkling Small |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 56.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 73.3 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 73.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 90.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 46.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 17.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1411 | 1459 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1422 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index41
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 85.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 40.4% | 37.9% | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1433 | 1428 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1428 | 1413 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1430 | 1415 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1404 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 47.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1074 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1002 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1004 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1060 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1020 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1059 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1020 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1313
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 27.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 44.8% | 32.7% | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 83.0% | 84.1% | Inkling Small |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IFBench | 50.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 65.3% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 76.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMCA | 27.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text | 1417 | 1413 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1405 | 1399 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1400 | 1334 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | 1237 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: English | 1418 | 1421 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1409 | 1401 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1449 | 1464 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: German | 1417 | 1408 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1396 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1385 | 1367 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: French | 1432 | 1435 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1422 | 1422 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1415 | 1394 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1413 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1408 | 1416 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1419 | 1402 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1405 | 1357 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1393 | 1352 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1239 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1284 | 1292 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1237 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1225 | 1207 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1277 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1252 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1241 | 1205 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Gemini 2.5 Flash costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Thinking Machines | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | June 17, 2025 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 27.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.466 | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash better than Inkling Small for coding?
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Gemini 2.5 Flash has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash for a larger context window (1.05M against 524K tokens) and work measured by MedCode (Vals AI) or LMArena Text: science, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Inkling Small?
Gemini 2.5 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Gemini 2.5 Flash costs $0.466 and Inkling Small $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Inkling Small?
Gemini 2.5 Flash, with 1.05M tokens against 524K.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
46 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Gemini 2.5 Flash's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Inkling Small's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.