Fugu Max vs Inkling Small
| Signal | Fugu Max | Delta | Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 100 | +33 | |
Pricing | 94 | -5 | |
Context window size | 95 | 0 | |
Recency | 100 | -- | |
Output Capacity | 82 | -5 | |
Benchmarks | 0 | -67 | |
| Overall Result | 1 wins | of 6 | 4 wins |
Score History
40
current score
Inkling Small
right now
68.7
current score
Fugu Max
sakana
Inkling Small
thinkingmachines
Inkling Small saves you $395.00/month
That's $4740.00/year compared to Fugu Max at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
| Metric | Fugu Max | Inkling Small | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 40 | 69 | Inkling Small |
| Rank | #245 | #173 | Inkling Small |
| Quality Rank | #245 | #173 | Inkling Small |
| Adoption Rank | #245 | #173 | Inkling Small |
| Parameters | -- | -- | -- |
| Context Window | 1000K | 1049K | Inkling Small |
| Pricing | $2.00/$6.00/M | $0.45/$1.20/M | -- |
| Signal Scores | |||
| Capabilities | 100 | 67 | Fugu Max |
| Pricing | 94 | 99 | Inkling Small |
| Context window size | 95 | 96 | Inkling Small |
| Recency | 100 | 100 | Fugu Max |
| Output Capacity | 82 | 87 | Inkling Small |
| Benchmarks | -- | 67 | Inkling Small |
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.
Scores 40/100 (rank #245), placing it in the top 16% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 69/100 (rank #173), placing it in the top 41% of all 290 models tracked.
Inkling Small has a 29-point advantage, which typically translates to noticeably stronger performance on complex reasoning, code generation, and multi-step tasks.
Choose Fugu Max when you need:
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
Choose Inkling Small when you need:
- High-volume production workloads where API costs must be minimized
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
- Self-hosted deployments where you need full control over the model
Inkling Small offers 79% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $24.75/month with Inkling Small vs $120.00/month with Fugu Max - a $95.25 monthly difference.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. Inkling Small also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (1049K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($1.20/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (69/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Image understanding & OCR
Supports vision input - can analyze screenshots, diagrams, photos, and scanned documents directly
Inkling Small clearly outperforms Fugu Max with a significant 28.700000000000003-point lead. For most general use cases, Inkling Small is the stronger choice. However, Fugu Max may still excel in niche scenarios.
By Use Case
Best for Quality
Fugu Max
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
Inkling Small
79% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
Fugu Max
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
Fugu Max
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
Fugu Max
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by sakana
- Choose for Quality - Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
- Choose for Reliability - Higher uptime and faster response speeds
- Choose for Prototyping - Stronger community support and better developer experience
- Choose for Production - Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by thinkingmachines
- Choose for Cost - 79% lower pricing; better value at scale
| Capability | Fugu Max | Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input) | ||
| Function Calling | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Modediffers | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Web Searchdiffers | ||
| Image Output |
Fugu Max
sakana
Inkling Small
thinkingmachines
Inkling Small saves you $8.55/month
That's 79% cheaper than Fugu Max at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | Fugu Max | Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 1M | 1.0M |
| Max Output Tokens | 128,000 | 262,144 |
| Open Source | No | Yes |
| Created | Sep 11, 2026 | Jul 30, 2026 |