Inkling 2 Small is Thinking Machines' second-generation 594B-total, 17B-active mixture-of-experts model with image input. its weights are closed for now; the lab plans an Apache 2.0 release. on octomind it is served only through Tinker.
pick it if
want the lowest-priced Inkling on octomind, below Inkling Small on both input and output
need adjustable reasoning effort, with chain-of-thought you can switch off
work on long agent runs: the lab trained it with a 256K window plus compaction
skip it if
you need open weights today; the lab has not released them yet
you need audio input; Inkling 2 Small takes text and images only
Inkling is Thinking Machines' open-weights model and the first in its family: a 975B-parameter mixture-of-experts (41B active) that reasons over text, images and audio with controllable thinking effort. Inkling Small is its smaller, cheaper sibling.
pick it if
you want Apache 2.0 open weights you can later fine-tune on Tinker
you send images with text and want to tune thinking effort
you run coding or agent harnesses, the work it was trained for
skip it if
cheaper Inkling Small, at half the input price, covers your workload
you need the strongest model; Thinking Machines says Inkling is not it
faq
which is cheaper, Inkling 2 Small or Inkling?
Inkling 2 Small lists lower input and output prices. on a coding-agent session (2M tokens in, 60,000 out) Inkling 2 Small costs $0.66 and Inkling $2.24.
can i switch between Inkling 2 Small and Inkling mid-task?
yes. in an octomind session, /model octohub:inkling-2-small and /model octohub:inkling switch models without losing the conversation, so you can draft on one and review on the other.
try either model
switch between models inside the same octomind session.