# Apertus v1.5 8B vs Inkling 2 Small (slim)

> Apertus v1.5 8B scores 61 (C) to Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C) for open-weight models you run yourself. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apertus-v1-5-8b-vs-inkling-2-small.md (~9,200 tokens) · this version ~580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apertus-v1-5-8b-vs-inkling-2-small.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apertus-v1-5-8b-vs-inkling-2-small
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-12
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Apertus v1.5 8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Apertus v1.5 8B: C 61, rank #40 of 161 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apertus-v1-5-8b.min.md
- Inkling 2 Small: C 58.8, rank #102 of 161 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling-2-small.min.md
- Apertus v1.5 8B, good for Agents that want a fully open, multilingual 8B with image and audio input on one 24 GB GPU, and can run a publisher fork of vLLM. Ahead on Risk, 75 against 65; Documentation and upkeep, 84 against 67.
- Inkling 2 Small, good for Teams with 512 GB or more of datacentre GPU memory who want Thinking Machines' newest open multimodal agent model and can run a runtime's pre-release image.

| Category | Apertus v1.5 8B | Inkling 2 Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 40 | 40 |
| Risk (20%) | 75 | 65 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 85 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 84 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Apertus v1.5 8B | Inkling 2 Small |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Swiss AI Initiative (EPFL and ETH Zurich) | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, with the Apertus Acceptable Use Policy (v1.5, 14 July 2026) accepted at the download gate | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-11-12 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Documentation and upkeep, Apertus v1.5 8B +17: Apertus v1.5 8B 84 (Model card 14 of 20, languages and a knowledge cut-off are missing.); Inkling 2 Small 67 (Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off.)
- Risk, Apertus v1.5 8B +10: Apertus v1.5 8B 75 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no code in the repository.); Inkling 2 Small 65 (File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run.)