THInkling Small Open vs 
Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) Open
Inkling Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
$1.2 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host
$3.75 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host
Inkling Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) specs
| Spec | Inkling Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maker | Thinkingmachines | Mistral AI | – |
| Type | Open-weight | Open-weight | – |
| Context window | 524K tokens | 262K tokens | THInkling Small |
| Input price | $0.45/M · free self-host | $0.75/M · free self-host | THInkling Small |
| Output price | $1.2/M · free self-host | $3.75/M · free self-host | THInkling Small |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes | = Tie |
| License | Open weights | Apache 2.0 | – |
Price gap & when to choose each
Inkling Small is ~3.1× cheaper than Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) on output tokens ($1.2 vs $3.75 per M tokens).
- You want to self-host or run on your cloud
- You need the longer 524K context window
- You prioritize data privacy & control
- You want the lowest operating costs
- You are building open or reproducible AI
- You want to self-host or run on your cloud
- You prioritize data privacy & control
- You are building open or reproducible AI
Feature comparison
| Capability | Inkling Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✓ |
| Runs fully offline | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✗ | ✗ |
Benchmarks: Inkling Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch)
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
How Inkling Small and Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) score
| Criterion | Inkling Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Context window | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Openness | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Self-hosting | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Multimodality | 5.0 | 5.0 |
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.
What each model is
Inkling Small Open
Inkling Small is an open-weight multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines Lab, with 12B active parameters out of 276B total. It is positioned as the smaller, more efficient member of...
Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) Open
Mistral Medium 3.5 is a dense 128B instruction-following model from Mistral AI. It supports text and image inputs with text output, and is designed for agentic workflows, coding, and complex...
Other models in these families
These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.
Frequently asked questions
Inkling Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) — which is cheaper?
Inkling Small is cheaper on output ($1.2/M vs $3.75/M).
Which has the larger context window?
Inkling Small offers the larger context window (524K tokens).
Inkling Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch) — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose Inkling Small for the lower output price ($1.2/M vs $3.75/M). It also gives you the larger 524K context window.
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