Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small leads Mistral Medium 3.5 on coding, 48.9 to 25.4 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Inkling 2 Small costs 7.5x less per output token ($1.00 vs $7.50 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 34 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3.5 or Inkling 2 Small: which to pick
Pick Inkling 2 Small for coding: it scores 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.4 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 for work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 34
- Mistral Medium 3.5 only
- 55
- Inkling 2 Small only
- 17
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small scores 48.9 against 25.4.
3 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small leads, 30.6 against 4.6.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 7.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 34.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a MMLU Pro result, 75.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1134.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling 2 Small has a Vals Index result, 56.1%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small
Mistral Medium 3.5 $0.0053, Inkling 2 Small $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has the number, $6.02.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3.5 25.4 from 3 benchmarks, Inkling 2 Small 48.9 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 36.0 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Mistral Medium 3.5 2.9% against Inkling 2 Small 81.5%, 78.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3.5 $7.50 against Inkling 2 Small $1.00 per million output tokens, 7.5x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3.5 takes 262K tokens, Inkling 2 Small 1.05M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Bars | Inkling 2 Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 7 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 4 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 1 | ||
| General | 10 | 3 | ||
| All shared boards | 16 | 18 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index27
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1263 | 1647 | Inkling 2 Small |
| AA Coding Index | 46.9 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 66.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 12.6% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 2.9% | 81.5% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 5.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 43.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SciCode | 40.2% | 52.3% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | 0.0% | 13.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | 1.8% | 25.4% | Inkling 2 Small |
| ALE-Bench | 764.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1461 | 1455 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1458 | 1443 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1252 | 1660 | Inkling 2 Small |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1309 | 1661 | Inkling 2 Small |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | Not measured | 97.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| GameBench 2 | 26.8 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 4.6 | 30.6 | Inkling 2 Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.6 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 7.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 1.9% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 32.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 4.5% | 38.9% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 9.1% | 46.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 21.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 11.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.0% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 94.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 46.8% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| MCP Atlas | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index24
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 34.9% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.2% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.8% | 44.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.7% | 28.7% | Inkling 2 Small |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | 0.5% | 35.0% | Inkling 2 Small |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 96.5% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 81.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1436 | 1421 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1431 | 1478 | Inkling 2 Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1444 | 1424 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1255 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1229 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 41.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | 9.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1430 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1440 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MathArena | Not measured | 42.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 75.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 44.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 58.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 68.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 28.9% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 33.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| AA-Omniscience | -38.7 | 16.1 | Inkling 2 Small |
| LMArena Text: science | 1428 | 1409 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1407 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1437 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1426 | 1415 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1134 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1069 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1069 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1117 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1040 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1111 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 939 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1057 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index103
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 56.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 72.0% | 88.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 67.7% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 34.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| IFBench | 68.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 69.3% | 83.3% | Inkling 2 Small |
| GDPval-AA | 769 | 1630 | Inkling 2 Small |
| DTBench | 75.5% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMCA | 26.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 26.9% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1421 | 1403 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1416 | 1408 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1374 | 1348 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Vision | 1222 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1433 | 1418 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1405 | 1390 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1444 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1460 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1383 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1448 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1412 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1397 | 1377 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1429 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1424 | 1408 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1415 | 1403 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1383 | 1381 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1383 | 1359 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1242 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1245 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1233 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1218 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1199 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 983 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | April 30, 2026 | November 9, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $7.50 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 25.4 | 48.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $6.02 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Inkling 2 Small for coding?
Pick Inkling 2 Small for coding: it scores 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.4 for Mistral Medium 3.5. Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 for work measured by LMArena Text: coding or LMArena Text: software and IT, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Inkling 2 Small?
Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens; Inkling 2 Small costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for Mistral Medium 3.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Inkling 2 Small?
Inkling 2 Small, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Inkling 2 Small comparison based on?
34 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. Mistral Medium 3.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Inkling 2 Small's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.