Inkling Small vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-19.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Inkling Small
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Inkling Small: 48.3% less intelligence, 30.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 87.4% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.2 | 21.3 | −48.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 48.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $192.52 | $250.18 | +30.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 30.0% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.30s | 4.97s | −87.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 87.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Inkling Small is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Inkling SmallQwen3 Coder NextToday'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-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill