Inkling Small vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 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-Flash-Next scores 14.1 points higher (39.8 vs 25.7) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $241; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Inkling Small.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 39.8 | +54.9% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 54.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $362.72 | +50.6% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 50.6% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.68s | 50.25s | +296.3% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 296.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Inkling Small: 54.9% more intelligence, 50.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 296.3% 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-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Inkling SmallQwen3.8-Flash-NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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