Claude Fable 5.2 vs Inkling 2 Small
Claude Fable 5.2 leads Inkling 2 Small on coding, 87.8 to 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Inkling 2 Small costs 40.0x less per output token ($1.00 vs $40.00 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 29 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Fable 5.2 or Inkling 2 Small: which to pick
Pick Claude Fable 5.2 for coding: it scores 87.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 48.9 for Inkling 2 Small.
Pick Inkling 2 Small for output tokens 40.0x cheaper ($1.00 vs $40.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
- Shared results
- 29
- Claude Fable 5.2 only
- 39
- Inkling 2 Small only
- 22
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Claude Fable 5.2
Claude Fable 5.2 scores 87.8 against 48.9.
4 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Fable 5.2
Claude Fable 5.2 leads, 64.6 against 30.6.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Fable 5.2 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1351.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
Claude Fable 5.2
Claude Fable 5.2 leads, 71.3% against 56.1%.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling 2 Small
Inkling 2 Small takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small
Claude Fable 5.2 $0.028, Inkling 2 Small $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Fable 5.2 87.8 from 4 benchmarks, Inkling 2 Small 48.9 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 40.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI): Claude Fable 5.2 65.2% against Inkling 2 Small 12.6%, 70.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Fable 5.2 $40.00 against Inkling 2 Small $1.00 per million output tokens, 40.0x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Fable 5.2 takes 1M tokens, Inkling 2 Small 1.05M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Fable 5.2 | Bars | Inkling 2 Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 10 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 4 | 3 | ||
| Reasoning | 6 | 0 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| All shared boards | 25 | 3 | 1 tie |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index100
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 79.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1838 | 1647 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 65.2% | 12.6% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 93.8% | 81.5% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 19.0% | 0.5% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 62.3% | 43.1% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| SciCode | 67.7% | 52.3% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | 61.6% | 13.1% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | 49.1% | 25.4% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| FrontierSWE | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2509.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1455 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1443 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1915 | 1660 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1738 | 1661 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | Not measured | 97.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| GameBench 2 | 99.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| CursorBench 4.0 | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 64.6 | 30.6 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 173.4 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index43
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1402 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1325 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1434 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LiveBench research | 94.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 82.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 1.9% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 32.1% | 38.9% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 46.1% | 46.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 5.0% | 21.7% | Inkling 2 Small |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 83.7% | 70.0% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 55.7% | 2.9% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Vals Science Index | 63.7% | 32.7% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| APEX-Agents | 80.1% | 46.8% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Remote Labor Index | 41.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| SpireClimb | 15.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| MCP Atlas | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 88.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 51.8% | 25.2% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.3% | 44.1% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.2% | 28.7% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.5% | 35.0% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | 96.5% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 93.8% | 81.7% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| SimpleBench | 94.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 79.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 90.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| EBR-bench | 90.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1421 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1478 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1424 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Scale run) | 72.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| GoBench | 2566 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| MathArena | 82.8% | 42.4% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-Omniscience | 66.8 | 16.1 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 94.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1415 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| PRBench Finance | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| PRBench Legal | 49.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1351 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1371 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1396 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1517 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1373 | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LiveBench design | 85.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 71.3% | 56.1% | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| LiveBench data analysis | 81.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 83.3% | 83.3% | Tie |
| GDPval-AA | 1831 | 1630 | Claude Fable 5.2 |
| DTBench | 99.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMCA | 70.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 90.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Fable 5.2 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1403 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1348 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1418 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1390 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1377 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1408 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1403 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1381 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1359 | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Fable 5.2 | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Fable 5.2 | Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | November 9, 2026 | November 9, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $8.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $40.00 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 87.8 | 48.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Fable 5.2 better than Inkling 2 Small for coding?
Pick Claude Fable 5.2 for coding: it scores 87.8 on the Vibe Coding Index against 48.9 for Inkling 2 Small. Pick Inkling 2 Small for output tokens 40.0x cheaper ($1.00 vs $40.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Claude Fable 5.2 or Inkling 2 Small?
Claude Fable 5.2 costs $8.00 per million input tokens and $40.00 per million output tokens; Inkling 2 Small costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Fable 5.2 or Inkling 2 Small?
Inkling 2 Small, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Fable 5.2 vs Inkling 2 Small comparison based on?
29 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. Claude Fable 5.2's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Inkling 2 Small's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.