# Inkling 2 Small vs MiniMax API

> MiniMax scores 55.3 (C) to Inkling 2 Small's 52.1 (D) for llm inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-minimax-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-minimax-api.md (~5,700 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-06

MiniMax API scores 55.3 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 52.1 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Inkling 2 Small leads on security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do llm inference.

- Inkling 2 Small: grade D, 52.1/100, rank #899 of 1354. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inkling-2-small.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/inkling-2-small.json
- MiniMax API: grade C, 55.3/100, rank #788 of 1354. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/minimax-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/minimax-api.json
- Best model APIs and inference for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/inference/index.md
- All 596 models comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inference/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Inkling 2 Small (D)

Good for: Developers who want a capable multimodal open-family model through an OpenAI-compatible API today, or to fine-tune it on Tinker, and who can live with a beta surface until the weights are published.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 57 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 45

Watch for: Serverless inference and the OpenAI-compatible API are both labelled beta, with a waitlist for higher throughput

### MiniMax API (C)

Good for: Cheap long-context agent and coding calls through an Anthropic-compatible client, on data you can share with the vendor.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 70

Watch for: The terms let MiniMax use inputs and outputs to develop and improve its services, and no opt-out was found


## Why the edge

### Reliability: MiniMax API +45

- Inkling 2 Small (30): Model reading, for the surface it's called on, Tinker's serverless inference and OpenAI-compatible API. No status page found, per the tinker listing's checks of 1 October and 4 November (0), so no readable incident history (5). The only published limit is the in-flight sample cap of 2,000, per the tinker listing's 1 October check; the OpenAI-compatible page gives no numbers and says higher or more stable throughput needs the waitlist (10). The SDK retries sampling with stable request IDs, per the tinker listing's reading of the SDK repository; the OpenAI-compatible page has no retry guidance (15). No SLA found (0). Serverless inference is 'currently in beta' on the models and pricing page and the OpenAI-compatible API is labelled Beta, read 6 November (0). 0 + 5 + 10 + 15 + 0 + 0 = 30.
- MiniMax API (75): Atlassian Statuspage at status.minimax.io with Large Language Models, Text-to-Speech and Video Generation components (20). Its history pages, re-read on 4 November, now cover the whole 90 days from 6 August. They list 212 incidents on the LLM component, every one titled 'Elevated errors on Large Language Models (LLM)' and labelled major, and none states a full outage. The longest ran 65 minutes (01:15 to 02:20 UTC on 20 October, 'We are currently investigating this issue' and then resolved), and the rest closed within the hour. This run reads elevated errors with no fuller scope as partial, so minor only, frequent as they are (20). The rate-limits page publishes 200 requests and 10,000,000 tokens a minute for M3.1 Flash and M3 (15). The Anthropic-format OpenAPI file documents 429 for rate limits and 529 as an overload that can be retried, and the error-code page says to retry later on 1002, 2064 and other codes, with no Retry-After header or backoff schedule found (10). No SLA found (0). M3.1 Flash and M3 are generally available (10). Total 75.

### Maintenance & community: Inkling 2 Small +30

- Inkling 2 Small (75): Model reading. Released 5 November 2026 (30). Churn and notice in place of release counts: Inkling, Inkling-Small (30 July) and Inkling 2 Small in about four months, and a deprecations page with dated retirements and a promise to 'aim to give advance notice' by email, with no stated period, per the tinker listing (10 of 20). A public changelog and a support address and Discord, per the tinker listing (10 of 15). Current official SDKs, Tinker's Python SDK and the OpenAI-compatible endpoint (15). SDK and cookbook CI, per the tinker listing (10). 30 + 10 + 10 + 15 + 10 = 75.
- MiniMax API (45): Model reading. MiniMax-M3.1-Flash shipped on 19 October 2026, dated on the model release page, which has no newer entry on 4 November (16 days, 30). No stated notice policy. The M2.5 and M2.7 families closed to new users on 19 October and retire on 18 November, 30 days later, and from 19 October M Plan and Token Plan requests to them are served by M3.1 Flash under the old names. We couldn't find when that notice was first posted, and the page carries the same notice on 4 November (3 of 12). Churn is high. M2.5 (February 2026) and M2.7 (March 2026) retire within nine months of release, M2.1 and M2 are already retired, and the model list still calls M2.5 and M2.7 retired on 4 November while the notice on the same page gives 18 November (2 of 8). A dated release page, support email addresses on the contact and model pages, a Discord server and GitHub issues on the model repositories. We didn't test whether they answer (10 of 15). No official SDK (0 of 15, 0 of 10). Total 45.

### Security & auth: Inkling 2 Small +27

- Inkling 2 Small (57): Platform readings are the tinker listing's. Revocable API keys from the console, with no per-key scopes found (20). Org, team and project permissions with no read-only role (5). The model returns its own completions, no third-party content (10). get_audit_log() for admins (15). security.txt with a reporting address and no stated acknowledgement time (7). For the model reading, Tinker's terms commit not to use Customer Content for training, recorded under transparency. 20 + 5 + 10 + 15 + 7 = 57.
- MiniMax API (30): Model reading (credential, training, retention, operator visibility, programme). One bearer key per account on the pay-as-you-go side and a separate Subscription Key for M Plan, with no scopes found. MiniMax says it may disable keys that leak publicly (20 of 30). The terms, effective 30 March 2026 and unchanged on 4 November, say MiniMax may use input and generated content to provide, maintain, develop and improve its services, and no opt-out was found. The privacy policy says only that personal data isn't used for training to profile or target consumers (0 of 20). Data is kept as long as necessary for its purpose, with no period stated and no zero-retention route (5 of 15). A usage page and balance alerts, no audit log found (5 of 15). No security.txt on platform.minimax.io (404 again on 4 November) or api.minimax.io (per the 19 October check), and no bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20). Total 30.

### Schema & documentation: MiniMax API +12

- Inkling 2 Small (70): Model reading. No OpenAPI file of its own; the OpenAI-compatible chat and completions endpoints and the typed Python SDK are the contract, as the tinker listing reads it (15). llms.txt on the docs host, per the tinker listing's 1 October check (10). The model card states intended use (agentic and tool-use systems, coding assistants, chatbots, RAG), inputs, outputs and limitations, and the launch post its benchmarks (16 of 20). Model IDs, context lengths and the reasoning_effort values (none to xhigh, or 0.0 to 0.99) are documented; the tool-call format and structured output aren't, for this model (8 of 15). A Python example and an HTTP 400 for models without reasoning_effort, with no error page (6 of 15). A dated Tinker changelog and a model deprecations page, per the tinker listing (15). 15 + 10 + 16 + 8 + 6 + 15 = 70.
- MiniMax API (82): OpenAPI 3.1 files for the Anthropic Messages, OpenAI Chat Completions and OpenAI Responses endpoints, each listing MiniMax-M3.1-Flash and MiniMax-M3 (25). llms.txt indexes the docs, and each page is served as Markdown (10). Field descriptions say which model each setting applies to, such as `service_tier` not being supported on M3.1 Flash and `thinking: disabled` returning 400 there, and a compatibility table marks `top_k`, `stop_sequences`, `mcp_servers` and `container` as ignored (15 of 20). Enums for model, `effort`, `service_tier` and thinking type, with required fields marked. The OpenAI-format schema has no `tool_choice` or `response_format` (11 of 15). The Anthropic-format file documents typed errors for 400, 401, 403, 404, 413, 429, 500 and 529 with example bodies, and a page lists 45 error codes with a fix for each (the 19 October note counted 23; 2069, model no longer available, is among them on 4 November), but the OpenAI and Responses files document only 200 (11 of 15). A dated model release page with the 19 October entry as its newest on 4 November, while the API release notes still stop at 28 October 2025 (10 of 15). Total 82.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Inkling 2 Small | MiniMax API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 75 | MiniMax API +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 82 | MiniMax API +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 62 | 59 | Inkling 2 Small +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 30 | Inkling 2 Small +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 45 | Inkling 2 Small +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 65 | MiniMax API +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **52.1 · D** | **55.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Inkling 2 Small | MiniMax API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Thinking Machines Lab | MiniMax |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://tinker.thinkingmachines.dev/services/tinker-prod/oai/api/v1` | `https://api.minimax.io` |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary for now, used through Tinker under the Tinker Terms of Use and Thinking Machines' Model Acceptable Use Policy, per the model card. Thinking Machines says it will publish the weights under Apache 2.0 the week after launch, once outside safety testing is done | Proprietary API under MiniMax's platform terms. MiniMax-M3 and MiniMax-M3.1-Flash weights are on Hugging Face under the MiniMax community licence |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-05 | 2026-10-19 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 493 stars |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Inkling 2 Small

No score change since it was listed.

### MiniMax API

- +0.1 on 28 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**Inkling 2 Small.** A new multimodal mixture-of-experts model from Thinking Machines, callable today through Tinker's OpenAI-compatible endpoint at $0.30 and $1.00 per million tokens, with strong vendor-reported coding and agent scores. Tinker's serverless inference is beta, with no status page or SLA, and the weights aren't public yet.

**MiniMax API.** M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 in and $0.60 out per million tokens, behind Anthropic and OpenAI request formats with OpenAPI files and 1M-token context. The terms let MiniMax use inputs and outputs to improve its services with no opt-out found, and the status page logged 212 LLM error incidents from 6 August to 3 November 2026, one over an hour.

## Before you call either

### Inkling 2 Small

1. Call https://tinker.thinkingmachines.dev/services/tinker-prod/oai/api/v1 with an OpenAI client and TINKER_API_KEY, using /chat/completions
2. The serverless model ID is thinkingmachines/Inkling-2-Small:peft:262144:sampling-nvfp4, per Tinker's pricing page. The OpenAI page's examples use your own checkpoint paths, so confirm it before relying on it
3. Pass reasoning_effort as none to xhigh or 0.0 to 0.99 (default 0.9); reasoning arrives in reasoning_content unless separate_reasoning is false
4. Keep images between 40 and 4096 px a side, per the model card
5. Validate JSON yourself, since structured output and the tool-call format aren't documented
6. Plan for a move to open weights. When they publish, the open-weights listing will carry sizes and runtimes

### MiniMax API

1. Use the Anthropic-format base URL `https://api.minimax.io/anthropic` for tool calls. The OpenAI-format schema has no `tool_choice` or `response_format`
2. Set `output_config.effort` (or `reasoning_effort`) below `max` for routine calls. M3.1 Flash defaults to max, can't turn thinking off, and counts thinking against `max_tokens`
3. Don't rely on `stop_sequences` or `top_k`. The Anthropic-format endpoint ignores them
4. Back off on 429, 529 and the retry-later codes (1002, 2064) yourself. No Retry-After header is documented
5. Use a pay-as-you-go key for production. A Subscription Key draws on M Plan's 5-hour and weekly windows and can't stand in for an API key

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Inkling 2 Small or MiniMax API?

MiniMax API scores 55.3 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 52.1 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Inkling 2 Small leads on security & auth and maintenance & community.

### Do Inkling 2 Small and MiniMax API need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Inkling 2 Small and MiniMax API without installing anything?

Yes. Inkling 2 Small has a hosted endpoint at https://tinker.thinkingmachines.dev/services/tinker-prod/oai/api/v1 and MiniMax API at https://api.minimax.io.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-minimax-api.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inkling-2-small-vs-minimax-api.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "inkling-2-small", "b": "minimax-api"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare inkling-2-small minimax-api`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/inkling-2-small.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/minimax-api.json

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp