# Thinking Machines Inkling

42 Hacker News commenters recommended Thinking Machines Inkling and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Thinking Machines' open-weights model, praised as a strong American debut and for its fast, pleasant tone, but critics say it trails rivals on benchmarks.

## Why people recommend it

- Competitive American open-weights model (8 comments): "For a first model, and given it's open, I am gaining some faith in American Open research labs again..." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925833)) "Very impressive model, exciting to see an American open-source lab with such competitive results." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48926804)) "Inkling is the most exciting model launch we've seen from an American lab in a while" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938465))
- Strong debut for a first release (4 comments): "releasing a decent open weights model in 16 months is actually quite comparable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925941)) "This seems like a really really great debut model for a new lab" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48926816)) "This seems like an extremely strong model for a first release" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925840))
- Fast, pleasant tone and personality (3 comments): "seems pretty dang snappy and I like it's tone/personality so far" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927057)) "it is SUPER FAST and does a good job at being a terminal buddy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49006006)) "This is the best voice/tone I've seen from any model so far." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928039))
- Accurate on niche details and knowledge (3 comments): "I enjoyed turning off web search for Inkling to experiment with what innate knowledge is encoded in the model weights." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48934025)) "Inkling, e.g. is more accurate in not telling you to adjust valves that are simply not adjustable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49303520)) "accurately answered a number of questions focused on very niche details" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929001))

## What people warn about

- Trails rivals on benchmarks (6 comments): "It looks promising, but on my cases it still fell short of GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.6 Luna." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930700)) "it debuts at #41 on the AA index and the post itself calls it not the strongest overall" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48931537)) "artificial analysis puts it quite low below previous gen open weights models from China" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933233))
- Only decent, not great (2 comments): "their Inkling model was decent (admittedly not great though)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49249298)) "yet another mediocre but fully-made-in-the-West open model" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49973717))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Qwen 3.8 27B](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen-3-8-27b.md): 1173 recommend
- [Z.ai GLM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glm-5-2.md): 1043 recommend
- [Kimi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kimi-k3.md): 931 recommend
- [Gemma 4](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemma-4.md): 713 recommend
- [Qwen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen.md): 474 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Thinking Machines Inkling", https://hackerapproved.com/p/inkling/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).