Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small leads Gemini 3 Flash Preview on coding, 48.9 to 43.7 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Inkling 2 Small costs 3.0x less per output token ($1.00 vs $3.00 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 9 benchmarks have a result for both.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small: which to pick
Pick Inkling 2 Small for coding: it scores 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 43.7 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
Gemini 3 Flash Preview is neither cheaper nor larger in context, and leads no benchmark both models were measured on.
- Shared results
- 9
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview only
- 60
- Inkling 2 Small only
- 42
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 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
Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small scores 48.9 against 43.7.
2 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Inkling 2 Small has a AA Intelligence Index result, 30.6.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.9%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a MMLU Pro result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has a Design Arena: websites result, 1188.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling 2 Small has a Vals Index result, 56.1%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 1.05M tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small
Gemini 3 Flash Preview $0.0020, Inkling 2 Small $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview has the number, $0.37.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview 43.7 from 2 benchmarks, Inkling 2 Small 48.9 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 30.9 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Gemini 3 Flash Preview 20.2% against Inkling 2 Small 81.5%, 61.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 3 Flash Preview $3.00 against Inkling 2 Small $1.00 per million output tokens, 3.0x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 1.05M tokens.
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 3 Flash Preview | Bars | Inkling 2 Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 3 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| General | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 9 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 75.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1647 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 12.6% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 20.2% | 81.5% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 6.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | 0.5% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 53.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 43.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 90.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 52.3% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 38.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 13.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | Not measured | 25.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 64.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GSO-Bench | 9.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| WeirdML | 61.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1367.2 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1455 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1443 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1660 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1661 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SciCode | 12.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | Not measured | 97.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 30.6 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1087 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1037 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1082 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1034 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1161 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1036 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 1.9% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 11.8% | 38.9% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 18.3% | 46.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 21.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.0% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 80.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 46.8% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| BALROG | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 49.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,635 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MCP Atlas | 62.0% | 85.4% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.2% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 36.6% | 44.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 28.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 35.0% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 89.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ARC-AGI | 84.7% | 96.5% | Inkling 2 Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 33.6% | 81.7% | Inkling 2 Small |
| SimpleBench | 61.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Chess puzzles | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 26.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| VPCT | 72.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1421 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1478 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1424 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 97.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 51.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 17.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| ProofBench | 15.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MathArena | Not measured | 42.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 88.6% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.4% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 95.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 55.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| AA-Omniscience | Not measured | 16.1 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| GeoBench | 88.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1415 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 63.8% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1188 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1155 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1163 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1179 | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 56.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 52.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| IFBench | 78.0% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 78.0% | 83.3% | Inkling 2 Small |
| GDPval-AA | Not measured | 1630 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| DTBench | 89.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMCA | 43.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 3 Flash Preview measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1403 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1348 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1418 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1390 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1377 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1403 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1381 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1359 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 3 Flash Preview | Inkling 2 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 2 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small 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 3 Flash Preview | Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Thinking Machines | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | December 17, 2025 | November 9, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $3.00 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 43.7 | 48.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.37 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Inkling 2 Small for coding?
Pick Inkling 2 Small for coding: it scores 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 43.7 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview. Gemini 3 Flash Preview is neither cheaper nor larger in context, and leads no benchmark both models were measured on.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
Gemini 3 Flash Preview costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $3.00 per million output tokens; Inkling 2 Small costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for Gemini 3 Flash Preview only.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 3 Flash Preview or Inkling 2 Small?
Neither: both take 1.05M tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Inkling 2 Small comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. Gemini 3 Flash Preview's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Inkling 2 Small's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.