Ling 3.0 Flash VL vs GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.
GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) — full profile ›
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
| Spec | Ling 3.0 Flash VL | GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inclusionai | OpenAI | – |
| Type | Open-weight | Proprietary | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| Context window | 131K tokens | 16K tokens | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| Input price | $0.06/M · free self-host | $0.25/M | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| Output price | $0.18/M · free self-host | $0.75/M | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | No | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No (API only) | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
| License | Open weights | Proprietary | INLing 3.0 Flash VL |
Ling 3.0 Flash VL is ~4.2× cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) on output tokens ($0.18 vs $0.75 per M tokens).
| Capability | Ling 3.0 Flash VL | GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✗ |
| Runs fully offline | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
| Criterion | Ling 3.0 Flash VL | GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Context window | 3.5 | 2.0 |
| Openness | 5.0 | 1.5 |
| Self-hosting | 5.0 | 1.0 |
| Multimodality | 5.0 | 3.5 |
Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.
Ling 3.0 Flash VL builds on Ling 3.0 Flash (124B total / 5.5B active MoE from InclusionAI), further strengthening its language capabilities while adding native visual perception and advanced visual...
GPT-3.5 Turbo is OpenAI's fastest model. It can understand and generate natural language or code, and is optimized for chat and traditional completion tasks. Training data up to Sep 2021.
These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.
Ling 3.0 Flash VL is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) may still lead on the hardest reasoning and agentic work. The gap keeps narrowing — benchmark both on your actual use case before deciding.
Yes. Ling 3.0 Flash VL has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.
Ling 3.0 Flash VL costs $0.18/M output vs $0.75/M for GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) — roughly 4x cheaper via API, and free if you self-host.
Choose Ling 3.0 Flash VL if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo (batch) if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.
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