Inkling Small vs Solar Pro 3
Which is better for the money: Inkling Small by Thinking Machines or Solar Pro 3 by Upstage? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Inkling Small scores 17.9 points higher (25.7 vs 7.8) but costs 1.5× as much to run the benchmark ($241 vs $159; both mid-range class). Pick Inkling Small when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Solar Pro 3.
| Metric | Inkling Small | Solar Pro 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.7 | 7.8 | −69.6% Solar Pro 3 is 69.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $240.85 | $159.22 | −33.9% Solar Pro 3 is 33.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.67s | 18.94s | +49.5% Solar Pro 3 is 49.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $1.20 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech | Text |
Solar Pro 3 vs Inkling Small: 69.6% less intelligence, 33.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.5% 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.
- Solar Pro 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Inkling SmallSolar Pro 3Today'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/solar-pro-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/inkling-small/solar-pro-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill