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 2026-09-09.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Inkling Small
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Inkling Small: 61.3% less intelligence, 97.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.8% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 26.1 | 10.1 | −61.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 61.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $476.03 | +97.6% Qwen3 Coder Next is 97.6% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 21.89s | 5.52s | −74.8% Qwen3 Coder Next is 74.8% 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 (xhigh) scores 34.80 for $179.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
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