Model comparison
Inkling vs Ministral 8B
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 26× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling scores higher in 8 categories and Ministral 8B in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Inkling leads 55.2 to 12.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 88.3% for Inkling and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $1.87 / $4.68 for Inkling.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 66K.
Side by side
| Inkling | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 27.8 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 66K | 128K |
| Max output | 66K | 128K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.87 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4.68 | $0.10 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Inkling: 34.1 (#229), Ministral 8B: 34.4 (#226)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1463 | 1202 |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1412 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| SciCode | 47% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Inkling leads
Inkling: 29.5 (#76), Ministral 8B: 16.2 (#140)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |
Reasoning Inkling leads
Inkling: 40.6 (#48), Ministral 8B: 17.7 (#279)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1452 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 87.5% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 36.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 50% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 79.5% | — |
| CritPt | 5.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | — |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.6 | — |
Math Inkling leads
Inkling: 31.2 (#198), Ministral 8B: 23.7 (#262)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1482 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 33.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 4.9% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 0% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge Inkling leads
Inkling: 55.2 (#44), Ministral 8B: 12.5 (#292)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1468 | 1170 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
Multilingual Inkling leads
Inkling: 54.2 (#49), Ministral 8B: 35.3 (#242)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1430 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1453 | — |
| LMArena German | 1456 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1401 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | — |
Instruction Following Inkling leads
Inkling: 75.3 (#65), Ministral 8B: 60.7 (#245)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1427 | 1161 |
Long Context Inkling leads
Inkling: 43.9 (#79), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#222)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1436 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Inkling leads
Inkling: 65.5 (#48), Ministral 8B: 39.8 (#241)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1443 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1390 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling better than Ministral 8B?
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 26× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Inkling or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Inkling lists at $1.87 and $4.68.
Is Inkling or Ministral 8B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (34.1 vs 34.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Ministral 8B does, with 128K tokens against 66K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling and Ministral 8B share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling has 41 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.