Mercury Edit 2 vs MiniCPM5-2B vs Qwen3.8 Flash Next
Qwen3.8 Flash Next comes out ahead, 70 to 53 and 35 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
InceptionMercury Edit 2
35/100- ECI—
- Price$0.25 / $0.75
- Context32K
OpenBMB
MiniCPM5-2B
53/100- ECI—
- Price$0.124 / $0.743
- Context131K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.8 Flash Next
70/100- ECI—
- Price$0.20 / $0.50
- Context262K
Qwen3.8 Flash Next is our pick
Qwen3.8 Flash Next is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against MiniCPM5-2B (53) and Mercury Edit 2 (35). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceQwen3.8 Flash NextQwen3.8 Flash Next $0.275 · MiniCPM5-2B $0.279 · Mercury Edit 2 $0.375 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen3.8 Flash NextQwen3.8 Flash Next 262,144 · MiniCPM5-2B 131,072 · Mercury Edit 2 32,000 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.8 Flash NextMercury Edit 2: Text · MiniCPM5-2B: Text · Qwen3.8 Flash Next: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingMiniCPM5-2B and Qwen3.8 Flash NextPublishes downloadable weights (apache-2.0 and qwen-community-1.0)
| Measure | Weight | Mercury Edit 2 | MiniCPM5-2B | Qwen3.8 Flash Next |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 70 | 76 | 76 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 0 | 35 | 80 |
| Context window | 20% | 0 | 24 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 35/100 | 53/100 | 70/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mercury Edit 2Inception | MiniCPM5-2BOpenBMB | Qwen3.8 Flash NextAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.25 | $0.124 (best) | $0.20 |
| Output | $0.75 | $0.743 | $0.50 (best) |
| Cached input | $0.025 | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.375 | $0.279 | $0.275 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Inception API | Median of 1 providers | Median of 5 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 32,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens | 262,144 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens | 131,072 tokens (best) | 131,072 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | No | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Openapache-2.0 | Openqwen-community-1.0 |
| API model ID | mercury-edit-2 | — | — |
| API providers | 1 | 1 | 5 (best) |
| Released | Mar 30, 2026 | Sep 6, 2026 | Aug 27, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Mercury Edit 2$4.00
- MiniCPM5-2B$2.73
- Qwen3.8 Flash Next$3.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mercury Edit 2, MiniCPM5-2B or Qwen3.8 Flash Next?
Qwen3.8 Flash Next is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against MiniCPM5-2B (53) and Mercury Edit 2 (35). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Mercury Edit 2, MiniCPM5-2B or Qwen3.8 Flash Next?
Qwen3.8 Flash Next is cheaper at $0.20 input / $0.50 output per million tokens (median across 5 API providers). MiniCPM5-2B costs $0.124 input / $0.743 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider); Mercury Edit 2 costs $0.25 input / $0.75 output per million tokens (official Inception API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.275 per million tokens for Qwen3.8 Flash Next versus $0.279 for MiniCPM5-2B (1× as much) and $0.375 for Mercury Edit 2 (1.4× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Mercury Edit 2 has not been scored yet, MiniCPM5-2B has not been scored yet and Qwen3.8 Flash Next has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mercury Edit 2, MiniCPM5-2B and Qwen3.8 Flash Next yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Mercury Edit 2 does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.8 Flash Next has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 131,072 for MiniCPM5-2B and 32,000 for Mercury Edit 2. Maximum output per response: Mercury Edit 2 up to 8,192, MiniCPM5-2B up to 131,072, Qwen3.8 Flash Next up to 131,072 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mercury Edit 2 accepts text; MiniCPM5-2B accepts text; Qwen3.8 Flash Next accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.8 Flash Next handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
MiniCPM5-2B and Qwen3.8 Flash Next publishes its weights (apache-2.0 and qwen-community-1.0) and can be self-hosted; Mercury Edit 2 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
MiniCPM5-2B is the newest, released Sep 6, 2026. Qwen3.8 Flash Next came out Aug 27, 2026; Mercury Edit 2 came out Mar 30, 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.
