Inkling Small vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Qwen3.8 Max 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 Max scores 14.5 points higher (40.2 vs 25.7) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $241; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 25.7, and Inkling Small when 25.7 is enough.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 40.2 | +56.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 56.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $3,172.37 | +1217.2% Qwen3.8 Max is 13× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.80s | 64.64s | +405.0% Qwen3.8 Max is 405.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Inkling Small: 56.4% more intelligence, 1217.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 405.0% 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 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Inkling SmallQwen3.8 MaxToday'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-max-0803 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/qwen3-8-max-0803?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill