Llama 4 Maverick vs Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads Llama 4 Maverick on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 25.7 to 9.3, and Llama 4 Maverick costs 1.2x less per output token ($1.00 vs $1.20 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 56 benchmarks have a result for both.
Llama 4 Maverick or Inkling Small: which to pick
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Llama 4 Maverick has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Llama 4 Maverick for output tokens 1.2x cheaper ($1.00 vs $1.20 per million) and work measured by SAGE (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 56
- Llama 4 Maverick only
- 29
- Inkling Small only
- 28
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 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 9.3.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 23.5 against 0.6.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 83.6% against 69.4%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Llama 4 Maverick has a AIME result, 25.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 85.6% against 79.4%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Llama 4 Maverick has a Design Arena: websites result, 871.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 524K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Llama 4 Maverick
Llama 4 Maverick $0.0008, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Inkling Small
Llama 4 Maverick $1.491, Inkling Small $0.16.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Llama 4 Maverick not benchmarked, Inkling Small 27.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 29.6 points apart on average over 10 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI: Llama 4 Maverick 4.4% against Inkling Small 84.0%, 79.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Llama 4 Maverick $1.00 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 1.2x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 524K 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 | Llama 4 Maverick | Bars | Inkling Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 5 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 10 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 10 | ||
| General | 1 | 25 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 55 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index05
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 15.6% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 21.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | 16.3 | 52.9 | Inkling Small |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 47.3% | 85.9% | Inkling Small |
| 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) | 39.7% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| SciCode | 31.7% | 49.7% | Inkling Small |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 6.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| WeirdML | 24.5% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| ALE-Bench | 173.0 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1301 | 1450 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1299 | 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 15 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.3 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 132.2 | 150.3 | Inkling Small |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 0.6 | 23.5 | Inkling Small |
| 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 | 17.8% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index010
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 69.4% | 83.6% | Inkling Small |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 71.7% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 67.1% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.9% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ARC-AGI | 4.4% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.0% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| SimpleBench | 27.7% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1281 | 1423 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1259 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1295 | 1429 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1134 | 1251 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1164 | 1257 | Inkling Small |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 55.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 25.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 85.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 92.4% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| AA Math Index | 19.3 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 19.3% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick 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 | 1299 | 1459 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1295 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index010
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 79.4% | 85.6% | Inkling Small |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 77.8% | 83.0% | Inkling Small |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 49.7% | 69.6% | Inkling Small |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 66.6% | 75.5% | Inkling Small |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 58.5% | 62.3% | Inkling Small |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 43.3% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 36.5% | 37.9% | Inkling Small |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| GeoBench | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1288 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1275 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1286 | 1415 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1260 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 871 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 896 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 837 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 882 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 900 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 879 | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index125
| Benchmark | Llama 4 Maverick | 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) | 35.7% | 32.7% | Llama 4 Maverick |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 54.2% | 84.1% | Inkling Small |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IFBench | 43.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 50.0% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 61.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| LMCA | 15.9% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 46.2% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 62.0% | Not measured | Only Llama 4 Maverick measured |
| LMArena Text | 1287 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1267 | 1399 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1266 | 1334 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision | 1142 | 1237 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: English | 1303 | 1421 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1269 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1277 | 1464 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: German | 1291 | 1408 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1206 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1203 | 1367 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: French | 1259 | 1435 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1293 | 1422 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1286 | 1394 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1275 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1289 | 1416 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1280 | 1402 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1277 | 1357 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1250 | 1352 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1150 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1141 | 1292 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1143 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1100 | 1207 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1099 | 1205 | Inkling Small |
| 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 | Llama 4 Maverick | 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
Llama 4 Maverick costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Llama 4 Maverick costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Llama 4 Maverick 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 | Meta Llama 4 Maverick | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Meta Llama | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | April 5, 2025 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 524K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.35 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.00 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 27.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.491 | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Llama 4 Maverick better than Inkling Small for coding?
Only Inkling Small has a coding score, 27.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; Llama 4 Maverick has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Llama 4 Maverick for output tokens 1.2x cheaper ($1.00 vs $1.20 per million) and work measured by SAGE (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Maverick or Inkling Small?
Llama 4 Maverick costs $0.35 per million input tokens and $1.00 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Llama 4 Maverick costs $1.491 and Inkling Small $0.16.
Which has the bigger context window, Llama 4 Maverick or Inkling Small?
Neither: both take 524K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Llama 4 Maverick vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
56 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Llama 4 Maverick'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.