Inkling Small vs Llama 4 Scout
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Llama 4 Scout by Meta? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling Small scores 19.2 points higher (25.7 vs 6.5) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $73.6; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Inkling Small when you need intelligence above 6.5, and Llama 4 Scout when 6.5 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Llama 4 Scout | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 6.5 | −74.7% Llama 4 Scout is 74.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $73.56 | −69.5% Llama 4 Scout is 69.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.68s | 5.06s | −60.1% Llama 4 Scout is 60.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.18 / $0.66 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image |
Llama 4 Scout vs Inkling Small: 74.7% less intelligence, 69.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 60.1% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Llama 4 Scout is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
Inkling SmallLlama 4 ScoutToday'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-small/llama-4-scout · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/llama-4-scout?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill