# Tinker by Thinking Machines

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinker/

9 people recommended Tinker by Thinking Machines in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 12 months, in 7 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Fine-tuning service that exposes training primitives; people find it smooth for large RL workflows. Critics say costs can be high.

Summary written by Claude from 14 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 10 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Good docs and starting point (2 comments in the sample): "Unsloth and Tinker (from Mira’s TML) are great places to start" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49243528)) "They have good docs on finetuning in general here" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930155))
- Smooth for large RL workflows (1 comment in the sample): "It’s one of the smoother experiences we’ve had running large scale RL workflows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45814649))
- Strong fit for open base models (1 comment in the sample): "Open base models that can be fine tuned on Tinker is a great business model IMO." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48926769))

## What people warn about

- Costs high; economics often don't work (1 comment in the sample): "even with a finetuning-as-a-serice like Tinker (the one from Thinking Machines) which is pretty cheap, the economics didn't work out that well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48607420))

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Tinker by Thinking Machines", https://hackerapproved.com/p/tinker/ (9 recommend, 1 mixed, 1 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.