Inkling-Small vs Kimi K3: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Inkling-Small is developed by Thinking Machines Lab, while Kimi K3 comes from Moonshot AI. Both were released in July 2026. Kimi K3 is the larger model at roughly 2.8 trillion parameters, against 276 billion for Inkling-Small.
We have 24 benchmark results for Inkling-Small and 3 benchmark results for Kimi K3, but they overlap on a single test: GPQA, where Kimi K3 scores 94.0% against 89.5%.
Inkling-Small is the cheaper API at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, roughly 10 times cheaper than Kimi K3 at $3 and $15. Kimi K3 takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 256K for Inkling-Small. Inkling-Small accepts text, images, and audio as input, while Kimi K3 accepts text and images. On tooling, only Kimi K3 supports function calling and only Kimi K3 offers structured output.
| Characteristic | Inkling-Small | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Thinking Machines Lab | Moonshot AI |
| Release Date | July 30, 2026 | July 16, 2026 |
| Parameters | 276B | 2.8T |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 256K | 1.0M |
| Context (output) | 256K | 1.0M |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.30 | $3.00 |
| Output Price / 1M | $1.20 | $15.00 |
| Average Score | 60.3% | 95.7% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| GPQA | 89.5% | 94.0% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Inkling-Small leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Inkling-Small — 0.6, Kimi K3 — 1.0.
Inkling-Small is 12.0x cheaper: input $0.30/1M vs $3.00/1M tokens.
Kimi K3 supports a larger context: 1M vs 256K tokens.
Inkling-Small is newer: released 7/30/2026 vs 7/16/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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The Inkling-Small and Kimi K3 comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Inkling-Small or Kimi K3 page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.