Inkling Small vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Qwen3.8 27B (Low) by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) scores 0.5 points higher (26.2 vs 25.7) but costs 4.4× as much to run the benchmark ($1060 vs $241; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when you need intelligence above 25.7, and Inkling Small when 25.7 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 26.2 | +1.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 1.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $1,060.08 | +340.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 4.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.95s | 55.10s | +325.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 325.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs Inkling Small: 1.9% more intelligence, 340.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 325.5% slower 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Inkling SmallQwen3.8 27B (Low)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-small/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill