Model comparison
Inkling-Small vs Qwen3 8B
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 39.0 to 16.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 90% for Inkling-Small and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 524K | 131K |
| Max output | 1.05M | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.45 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 43.3 (#80), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 48.7% | 22.6% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1408 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling-Small: —, Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 39.0 (#53), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 8.3% | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | 5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.13 | 136.17 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1424 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 44.9 (#65), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | 56.1% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1453 | — |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 48.3 (#71), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | 56.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 38.4 (#59), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#102), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1400 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1458 | — |
| LMArena French | 1438 | — |
| LMArena German | 1412 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1399 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1355 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1392 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1426 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 73.9 (#112), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1397 | — |
Long Context Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#113), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 59.8 (#102), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1413 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1330 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1420 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling-Small better than Qwen3 8B?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Is Inkling-Small or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.3 versus 33.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and Qwen3 8B share?
6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.