ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Inkling Small

Inkling Small comes out ahead, 70 to 67 and 65 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.8 27B

    Released Aug 14, 2026

    67/100
    • ECI149.4
    • Price$0.40 / $2.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.8 27B

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
  3. Our pick

    Thinking Machines

    Inkling Small

    Released Jul 30, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI150.2
    • Price$0.50 / $1.20
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove Inkling Small
01 — Verdict

Inkling Small is our pick

Inkling Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against Qwen3.8 27B (67) and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (65). It leads on price and context window. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityInkling SmallCapabilities Index (ECI): Inkling Small 150.2 · Qwen3.8 27B 149.4 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7
  • Lowest priceInkling SmallInkling Small $0.675 · Qwen3.8 27B $0.925 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextInkling SmallInkling Small 1,048,576 · Qwen3.8 27B 262,144 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.8 27B: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video · Inkling Small: Text, Images, Audio
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.8 27BQwen3.5 397B-A17BInkling Small
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%777478
Price25%514458
Inputs & features15%809070
Context window10%373761
Overall100%67/10065/10070/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Inkling Small specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.8 27BAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)Inkling SmallThinking Machines
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)149.4146.7150.2 (best)
ECI rank#53 of 148#67 of 148#47 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—86.4%88.5% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—31.2%46.3% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—88.9%90.0% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——19.1%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40 (best)$0.60$0.50
Output$2.50$3.60$1.20 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$0.925$1.35$0.675 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 39 providersOfficial Alibaba APIMedian of 11 providers
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)
Max output32,768 tokens65,536 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoYesYes
VideoYesYesNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenOpenApache-2.0
API model ID—qwen3.5-397b-a17b—
API providers41 (best)2311
ReleasedAug 14, 2026Feb 15, 2026Jul 30, 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.

  • Qwen3.8 27B$9.00
  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
  • Inkling Small$7.40
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.8 27B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Inkling Small?

Inkling Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 70/100 against Qwen3.8 27B (67) and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (65). It leads on price and context window. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.8 27B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Inkling Small?

Inkling Small is cheaper at $0.50 input / $1.20 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers). Qwen3.8 27B costs $0.40 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (median across 39 API providers); Qwen3.5 397B-A17B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.675 per million tokens for Inkling Small versus $0.925 for Qwen3.8 27B (1.4× as much) and $1.35 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (2× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Inkling Small scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Inkling Small 150.2 (#47 of 148), Qwen3.8 27B 149.4 (#53 of 148) and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 (#67 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (147.5–152.1 vs 147.5–151.6), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.8 27B, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Inkling Small yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Inkling Small leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Inkling Small has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.8 27B and 262,144 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.8 27B up to 32,768, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536, Inkling Small up to 1,048,576 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.8 27B accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts text, images, audio and video; Inkling Small accepts text, images and audio. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

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

Which is newer?

Qwen3.8 27B is the newest, released Aug 14, 2026. Inkling Small came out Jul 30, 2026; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B came out Feb 15, 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

Related comparisons