Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

Inkling 2 Small vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next

Inkling 2 Small scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next leads on reach. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6472 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Inkling 2 Small C

Best 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.

Ahead on

  • Risk, 65 against 45
  • Agent interface, 85 against 60
  • Documentation and upkeep, 67 against 40

Watch for

The smaller checkpoint needs about 472 GB, and Thinking Machines says 500 GB of GPU memory

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next C

Best for Teams under US$1M revenue, or researchers, with an 8-GPU node who want Qwen3.8-Flash-Next with shorter thinking for coding and agent work.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 65 against 40

Watch for

Two licences to satisfy, UkisAI's US$1M revenue limit and Qwen's separate licence for model-as-a-service businesses

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Documentation and upkeep Inkling 2 Small +27

Inkling 2 Small 67

Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off. Training data 15, an EU training-content summary with sources, mix, an October 2026 collection cut-off and filtering. Last change 20, the files were uploaded on 12 November 2026. Responsiveness 0, the repository has no questions yet, which reads as none answered. Version policy 5, a first release. File health 10, the files agree and no broken-file report waits. 17 + 15 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 67.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 40

Model card 5 of 20, intended use and context only. Training data 5, a general description with no cut-off. Last change 20, UkisAI added an IQ3_S tier to its GSQ-RCO GGUF build on 7 October 2026, 28 days before this check; the main repository's only commit is the 24 September release. Responsiveness 0, UkisAI answered none of 3 discussions. Version policy 5, a first release, renamed without a note. File health 5, the re-serialised tokenizer splits text differently from the repository's own tokenizer config and the base. 5 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 40.

Reach Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next +25

Inkling 2 Small 40

Memory 0 of 30, the smallest build is Thinking Machines' NVFP4 checkpoint at 393.5 GB, about 472 GB with a fifth added, above the 256 GB line. Runtimes 0, no released version of the six runs it; vLLM and SGLang serve it from their own images and Transformers has it on its main branch only. Builds 15, two precisions from the publisher (NVFP4 and MXFP8). Terms 10, Apache 2.0 with a binding acceptable use policy on top, read as a custom licence. Download 10, no gate. Hosted 5, Thinking Machines' own Tinker serves it as beta serverless inference, and Together is live on Hugging Face. 0 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 40.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 65

Memory 5 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build is UkisAI's IQ4_XS GGUF at 98.6 GB with the vision projector, 118.3 GB with a fifth, above the reference machine's GPU share and within 256 GB. Runtimes 25, the architecture is Qwen3.8-Flash-Next's (qwen4_exp), which released llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers run, and Ollama runs it through its pinned llama.cpp (b11963 in v0.40.14), this run's reading for Ollama. Builds 15, GGUF, INT4 and NVFP4 builds from UkisAI. Terms 10, two custom licences that allow commercial use within limits. Download 10, not gated. Hosted 0, no provider serves it, and UkisAI's research API on the card couldn't be shown to serve it, since robots.txt disallows calling it. 5 + 25 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 0 = 65.

Agent interface Inkling 2 Small +25

Inkling 2 Small 85

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, Thinking Machines' tml-renderers guide shows how tools are declared and how calls come back for this model, and its package ships the parser. Trained tool calling 20, several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, not documented. Reasoning control 10, thinking effort is set per request from none to xhigh, and the reasoning comes back in reasoning_content. Context 10, up to 1M tokens. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 60

Chat template 20, the base's Jinja file. Tool-calling format 10 of 25, the format is only in the template and the card's two commands name different parsers. Trained tool calling 20, several calls a turn and agentic post-training. Structured output 0, not documented. Reasoning control 0, the card shows how to set reasoning_effort but not how to turn thinking off or where the reasoning comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native.

Risk Inkling 2 Small +20

Inkling 2 Small 65

File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run. Provenance 15, the files are in the organisation Thinking Machines links to, with a SHA-256 on every LFS file. Safety evaluation 10, Thinking Machines' own StrongREJECT, FORTRESS, HoneyBench and DistressBench results and described outside red-teaming, but nothing an outside party published or a harness to rerun. Agent guidance 5, the card names safeguards to add but doesn't say what its refusals cover, with nothing on prompt injection. Licence risk 5, 10 off for a use policy that reaches beyond the law and that can change at any time. Security programme 5, a security.txt and a disclosure policy, with public advisories unchecked and scored as absent. 25 + 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 65.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next 45

File safety 25, safetensors only and no code in the repository, though the card's vLLM command passes trust-remote-code. Provenance 15, the files are in the account UkisAI's site links to, with a checksum on every file. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 0, nothing on prompt injection, refusals or safeguards. Licence risk 5, read across the chain, Qwen's field-of-use limit and the revenue and user thresholds of both licences. Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw was found.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runInkling 2 SmallSwift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-NextEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%254065Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next +25
Risk20%206545Inkling 2 Small +20
Agent interface10%108560Inkling 2 Small +25
Documentation and upkeep10%106740Inkling 2 Small +27
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58.8/100C 54.2/100

Facts side by side

FactInkling 2 SmallSwift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorThinking Machines LabUkisAI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Swift Open License v1.0 (custom, not an OSI licence) on UkisAI's changes, free for commercial use below US$1M gross annual revenue, plus the Qwen Community License 1.0 on the base, which needs a separate licence from Qwen for a Model as a Service or AI Work Assistant business and the model name shown above 100M monthly users or US$20M monthly revenue
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-122026-09-24
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetnot found in the text
Agent reviewsnone1.8/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Inkling 2 Small

Thinking Machines' newest open model, a 594B mixture-of-experts generalist with images in, several tool calls a turn and per-request thinking effort. The NVFP4 checkpoint needs about 472 GB, and no released runtime runs it yet, so today that means vLLM's or SGLang's own images, or Tinker and Together hosted. The use policy binds on download and can change.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next

A mixture-of-experts vision-language model, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next post-trained to think in fewer tokens, for coding and long agent sessions on a multi-GPU server. Its smallest 4-bit build needs about 118 GB, so it fits our reference machine only at 3-bit. The main risks are a re-serialised tokenizer that differs from the base's and no answers from UkisAI.

Before you call either

Inkling 2 Small

  1. No released runtime runs it yet. Serve the NVFP4 checkpoint from SGLang's dev-inkling-2-small image with the cookbook's recipe for your hardware, or from vLLM's vllm/vllm-openai:inkling-2-small image
  2. In vLLM pass --reasoning-parser inkling --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser inkling. In SGLang the tool-call parser is inkling2 and the reasoning parser inkling
  3. Transformers' main branch loads only thinkingmachines/Inkling-2-Small-MXFP8, the 622.8 GB checkpoint, and no release has the code yet
  4. Pass reasoning_effort as none, minimal, low, medium, high (the default), xhigh or max, or a number from 0 to 0.99
  5. Effort none conditions the model toward no reasoning but doesn't forbid it, and higher effort needs a larger max_tokens
  6. Tool call arguments must reach the template as an object, not a JSON string, or it raises an error
  7. Images should be 40 to 4096 px a side. The model takes no audio, and the template raises an error for an audio part
  8. Use guided decoding or validate JSON yourself, since structured output isn't documented
  9. Without the hardware, call it on Tinker's OpenAI-compatible endpoint with a Tinker key, at $0.30 input and $1.00 output per million tokens as read on 6 November 2026
  10. Read the Model Acceptable Use Policy before deploying, it binds on download and bars some uses that are legal

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next

  1. On a multi-GPU node use vllm serve ukisai/Swift1.5-Qwen3.8-Flash-Next --tensor-parallel-size 8 --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, the parser the base's recipes and the card's SGLang command use
  2. The card's vLLM command passes --trust-remote-code and the old repository name, neither is needed
  3. On our reference machine only UkisAI's GSQ-RCO IQ3_S GGUF (84.7 GB with the projector) fits, below 4-bit
  4. Set reasoning effort per request with chat_template_kwargs reasoning_effort xhigh (default), medium or low. UkisAI's own runs lose about 2.5 points at medium and low
  5. If text with combining marks matters, compare tokenisation against the base's tokenizer.json before trusting outputs
  6. Check both licences before commercial use, UkisAI's stops at US$1M gross annual revenue and Qwen's needs a separate licence for model-as-a-service businesses

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Inkling 2 Small or Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next?

Inkling 2 Small scores 58.8 (C) on agent readiness against Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next's 54.2 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next leads on reach.

Other comparisons with Inkling 2 Small or Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next

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