Inkling 2 Small vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Inkling 2 Small by Thinking Machines or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-06.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Inkling 2 Small
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Inkling 2 Small: 42.8% less intelligence, 106.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 211.9% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Inkling 2 Small | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 30.6 | 17.5 | −42.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 42.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $791.81 | $1,636.35 | +106.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.92s | 65.25s | +211.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 211.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.00 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling 2 Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.50 for $718.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.60 for $1124.
Inkling 2 SmallQwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/inkling-2-small/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-2-small/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill