Thinking Machines against MiniMax, compared on listed price, real workload cost, context and capabilities.
the short answer
on DeepSWE v1.1, as each maker reports it, Inkling 2 Small scores 72.1% and MiniMax M3.1 Flash 73.7%.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash lists lower input and output prices.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash offers the larger context window.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash reads cached input for less ($0.015/M against Inkling 2 Small's $0.03/M), which decides the bill for agents that resend long context.
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
MiniMax's fast multimodal agent and coding model with tunable thinking depth, the generally available successor of the M3.1 Flash Preview. it costs half of MiniMax M3's sub-512K per-token rate.
pick it if
you want MiniMax at half of M3's sub-512K per-token rate
you send prompts past 512K tokens; the rate stays flat
your agent re-reads long context; cached input bills at a tenth
skip it if
you need JSON-schema constrained output
you need downloadable weights today; MiniMax says they come later
faq
which is better, Inkling 2 Small or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
on DeepSWE v1.1, as each maker reports it, Inkling 2 Small scores 72.1% and MiniMax M3.1 Flash 73.7%. these are each maker's own numbers, not a controlled head-to-head; the spec table lists every benchmark both publish.
which is cheaper, Inkling 2 Small or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash lists lower input and output prices. on a coding-agent session (2M tokens in, 60,000 out) Inkling 2 Small costs $0.66 and MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.34.
can i switch between Inkling 2 Small and MiniMax M3.1 Flash mid-task?
yes. in an octomind session, /model octohub:inkling-2-small and /model octohub:minimax-m3.1-flash 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.