ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Inkling vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Inkling comes out ahead, 59 to 55 on our weighted score, though Mistral Medium 3.5 is 42% cheaper per token.

  1. Our pick

    Thinking Machines

    Inkling

    Released Jul 15, 2026

    59/100
    • ECI148.6
    • Price$3.74 / $9.36
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove Inkling

  2. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3.5

    Released Apr 29, 2026

    55/100
    • ECI141.4
    • Price$1.50 / $7.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3.5

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Inkling is our pick

Inkling is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Mistral Medium 3.5 (55). It leads on capability and context window. Mistral Medium 3.5 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityInklingCapabilities Index (ECI): Inkling 148.6 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
  • Lowest priceMistral Medium 3.5Mistral Medium 3.5 $3.00 · Inkling $5.14 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextInklingInkling 1,048,576 · Mistral Medium 3.5 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsInklingInkling: Text, Images, Audio · Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightInklingMistral Medium 3.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7667
Price25%1627
Inputs & features15%7070
Context window10%6137
Overall100%59/10055/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Inkling vs Mistral Medium 3.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationInklingThinking MachinesMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)148.6 (best)141.4
ECI rank#57 of 148 (best)#95 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions88.3%—
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics33.3%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics88.9%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions40.3%—
Price per million tokens
Input$3.74$1.50 (best)
Output$9.36$7.50 (best)
Cached input$0.748$0.15 (best)
Blended (3:1)$5.14$3.00 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Thinking Machines APIOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window1,048,576 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output1,048,576 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioYesNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYeslow · medium · high · xhigh · maxYeshigh
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenApache-2.0Open
API model IDthinkingmachines/Inkling:peft:262144mistral-medium-2604
API providers23 (best)12
ReleasedJul 15, 2026Apr 29, 2026
Knowledge cutoff——
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Inkling$56.12
  • Mistral Medium 3.5$30.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Inkling or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Inkling is the better all-round choice, scoring 59/100 against Mistral Medium 3.5 (55). It leads on capability and context window. Mistral Medium 3.5 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Inkling or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is cheaper at $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Inkling costs $3.74 input / $9.36 output per million tokens (official Thinking Machines API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $3.00 per million tokens for Mistral Medium 3.5 versus $5.14 for Inkling (1.7× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Inkling scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Inkling 148.6 (#57 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (145.7–150.6 vs 138.4–143.7), so the gap is a real one.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Inkling and Mistral Medium 3.5 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Inkling leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Mistral Medium 3.5. Maximum output per response: Inkling up to 1,048,576, Mistral Medium 3.5 up to 262,144 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Inkling accepts text, images and audio; Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images. Inkling handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Yes, both publish their weights (Apache-2.0), so you can self-host them.

Which is newer?

Inkling is the newest, released Jul 15, 2026. Mistral Medium 3.5 came out Apr 29, 2026.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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