Claude Opus 4.5 vs Inkling

Claude Opus 4.5 leads Inkling on coding, 44.0 to 31.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Inkling costs 6.2x less per output token ($4.05 vs $25.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 71 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Claude Opus 4.5 Replace Inkling

Claude Opus 4.5Anthropic

Coding: 44.0
Overall: 55.7
Output $/M: $25.00

T InklingThinking Machines

Coding: 31.5
Overall: 46.5
Output $/M: $4.05

vs boards won of 71 shared, 2 tied

Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling: which to pick

Pick Claude Opus 4.5 for coding: it scores 44.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 31.5 for Inkling, though on 3 benchmarks against 6.

Pick Inkling for output tokens 6.2x cheaper ($4.05 vs $25.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.76 against $1.37).

Model AClaude Opus 4.5Anthropic44.0/1003 independent benchmarks$1.37 per solved task Model BInklingThinking Machines31.5/1006 independent benchmarks$0.76 per solved task

713731

Shared results: 71
Claude Opus 4.5 only: 37
Inkling only: 31
Like-for-like categories: 8 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 Opus 4.5
Claude Opus 4.5 scores 44.0 against 31.5.
3 and 6 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.5
Claude Opus 4.5 leads, 29.1 against 25.0.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling has a AA Agentic Index result, 22.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling
Inkling leads, 87.1% against 85.9%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.5 has a AIME result, 95.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Opus 4.5
Claude Opus 4.5 leads, 87.3% against 86.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Opus 4.5
Claude Opus 4.5 leads, 1247 against 1224.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling has a Vals Index result, 29.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling
Inkling takes 524K tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling
Claude Opus 4.5 $0.018, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Inkling
Claude Opus 4.5 $1.37, Inkling $0.76.
Published attempt cost and pass rate

At a glance

Coding index: Claude Opus 4.5 44.0 from 3 benchmarks, Inkling 31.5 from 6 benchmarks.
Widest category: Coding, 9.7 points apart on average over 9 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap: ProofBench: Claude Opus 4.5 36.0% against Inkling 0.0%, 36.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: Claude Opus 4.5 $25.00 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 6.2x apart.
Context window: Claude Opus 4.5 takes 200K tokens, Inkling 524K.

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.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Ties
Coding	7	2
Intelligence	2	0
Agentic work	0	1
Reasoning	7	5
Math	3	2	1 tie
Knowledge	7	4
Web design	8	0
General	17	4	1 tie
All shared boards	51	18	2 ties

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index72

Coding benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
SWE-bench Verified	79.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
SWE-bench (full test set)	52.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
SWE-bench Multilingual	70.7%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
LiveBench coding	Not measured	64.0%	Only Inkling measured
LMArena WebDev	1494	1414	Claude Opus 4.5
AA Coding Index	Not measured	52.1	Only Inkling measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	83.7%	85.5%	Inkling
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	76.4%	77.6%	Inkling
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)	Not measured	0.5%	Only Inkling measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	20.6%	19.2%	Claude Opus 4.5
Code migration (Vals AI)	Not measured	11.8%	Only Inkling measured
ProgramBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	0.0%	Only Inkling measured
IOI (Vals AI)	Not measured	14.9%	Only Inkling measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)	Not measured	47.6%	Only Inkling measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)	Not measured	7.3%	Only Inkling measured
SkillsBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	26.1%	Only Inkling measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	66.8%	Only Inkling measured
LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run)	87.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
SciCode	Not measured	47.0%	Only Inkling measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)	47.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Terminal-Bench	63.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
FrontierCode	Not measured	14.0%	Only Inkling measured
FrontierSWE	Not measured	4.1%	Only Inkling measured
GSO-Bench	26.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
WeirdML	63.7%	32.3%	Claude Opus 4.5
Cybench	82.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
ALE-Bench	Not measured	946.0	Only Inkling measured
LMArena Text: coding	1503	1466	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: software and IT	1483	1465	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena WebDev: React	1478	1404	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena WebDev: HTML	1510	1399	Claude Opus 4.5
Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20

Intelligence benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	29.1	25.0	Claude Opus 4.5
Epoch Capabilities Index	150.1	148.4	Claude Opus 4.5

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01

Agentic work benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
AA Agentic Index	Not measured	22.5	Only Inkling measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps	1159	1196	Inkling
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps	1156	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps	1189	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps	1176	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
LiveBench research	Not measured	59.9%	Only Inkling measured
LiveBench browser	Not measured	16.0%	Only Inkling measured
LiveBench long agentic	Not measured	14.1%	Only Inkling measured
SREBench (Vals AI)	Not measured	0.0%	Only Inkling measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)	Not measured	46.6%	Only Inkling measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)	Not measured	15.3%	Only Inkling measured
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)	Not measured	28.4%	Only Inkling measured
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI)	Not measured	3.8%	Only Inkling measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)	Not measured	38.4%	Only Inkling measured
τ²-Bench Telecom	89.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
APEX-Agents	Not measured	33.8%	Only Inkling measured
METR time horizons	75.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Remote Labor Index	3.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
GDPval	45.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
BALROG	43.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
DeepResearch Bench	54.8%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
OSWorld	66.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Vending-Bench 2	$4,967	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL)	77.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index75

Reasoning benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
GPQA Diamond	85.9%	87.1%	Inkling
LiveBench reasoning	Not measured	78.3%	Only Inkling measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)	83.0%	78.5%	Claude Opus 4.5
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	86.6%	87.2%	Inkling
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	30.1%	31.9%	Inkling
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	86.0%	88.3%	Inkling
ARC-AGI	80.0%	79.5%	Claude Opus 4.5
ARC-AGI-2	37.6%	36.5%	Claude Opus 4.5
SimpleBench	62.0%	50.0%	Claude Opus 4.5
Chess puzzles	14.0%	21.0%	Inkling
Mystery game puzzles	22.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
EBR-bench	14.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
VPCT	40.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1476	1451	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: expert	1487	1466	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1482	1448	Claude Opus 4.5
Kagi LLM Benchmark	80.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here

MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index32

Math benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
AIME	95.4%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
MGSM (Vals AI)	95.2%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
AA Math Index	91.3	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run)	91.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
OTIS Mock AIME	86.1%	88.9%	Inkling
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	34.4%	33.3%	Claude Opus 4.5
FrontierMath, tier 4	4.9%	4.9%	Tie
ProofBench	36.0%	0.0%	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: math	1463	1479	Inkling
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1468	1460	Claude Opus 4.5
Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index74

Knowledge benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
MMLU Pro	87.3%	86.3%	Claude Opus 4.5
LegalBench (Vals AI)	84.6%	83.0%	Claude Opus 4.5
CaseLaw (Vals AI)	62.6%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)	65.1%	68.6%	Inkling
TaxEval (Vals AI)	74.9%	75.3%	Inkling
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	68.7%	64.0%	Claude Opus 4.5
MedQA (Vals AI)	95.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)	49.2%	41.2%	Claude Opus 4.5
MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run)	89.5%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
SimpleQA Verified	45.7%	40.3%	Claude Opus 4.5
GeoBench	75.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
LMArena Text: science	1454	1455	Inkling
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1444	1447	Inkling
LMArena Text: legal and government	1459	1448	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: business and finance	1448	1438	Claude Opus 4.5
FACTS Benchmark Suite	43.9%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here

Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80

Web design benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
Design Arena: websites	1247	1224	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: UI components	1235	1198	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: game dev	1228	1165	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: data viz	1243	1156	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: 3D	1213	1160	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: all code categories	1242	1205	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: SVG	1180	1108	Claude Opus 4.5
Design Arena: ASCII art	1190	1089	Claude Opus 4.5
LiveBench design	Not measured	58.3%	Only Inkling measured

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index174

General benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	Leader
Vals Index	Not measured	29.0%	Only Inkling measured
LiveBench data analysis	Not measured	72.8%	Only Inkling measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)	Not measured	58.5%	Only Inkling measured
SAGE (Vals AI)	52.1%	36.5%	Claude Opus 4.5
MedScribe (Vals AI)	85.3%	85.4%	Inkling
Vals Multimodal Index	Not measured	49.4%	Only Inkling measured
IFBench	58.0%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	77.3%	77.3%	Tie
DTBench	89.9%	87.5%	Claude Opus 4.5
LMCA	44.5%	37.6%	Claude Opus 4.5
CL-bench	21.1%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Furniture assembly	28.3%	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
LMArena Text	1451	1442	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: instruction following	1478	1425	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: creative writing	1445	1390	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: English	1461	1442	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: non-English	1438	1434	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: Chinese	1470	1493	Inkling
LMArena Text: German	1449	1445	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: Japanese	1417	1429	Inkling
LMArena Text: Korean	1424	1403	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: French	1471	1455	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: Spanish	1457	1449	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: Russian	1447	1430	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: Polish	1439	1450	Inkling
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1466	1437	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: longer queries	1479	1435	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: writing and language	1452	1404	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1434	1394	Claude Opus 4.5
LMArena Document	1462	Not measured	Only Claude Opus 4.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here

Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Image generation benchmarks for Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Benchmark	Claude Opus 4.5	Inkling	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

Claude Opus 4.5$0.018Fits in one request

Inkling$0.0030Fits in one request

Inkling costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.5$0.325Fits in one request

Inkling$0.061Fits in one request

Inkling costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Claude Opus 4.5$1.25Exceeds the context window

Inkling$0.235Fits in one request

Inkling 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.

Specifications of Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling
Specification	Anthropic Claude Opus 4.5	Thinking Machines Inkling
Maker	Anthropic	Thinking Machines
Weights	No public weights listed	Open weights
Released	November 24, 2025	July 17, 2026
Context window	200K	524K
Input $/Mtok	$5.00	$0.975
Output $/Mtok	$25.00	$4.05
Coding index	44.0	31.5
Independent measurements behind it	3	6
Cost per solved task	$1.37	$0.76
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Claude Opus 4.5 better than Inkling for coding?

Pick Claude Opus 4.5 for coding: it scores 44.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 31.5 for Inkling, though on 3 benchmarks against 6. Pick Inkling for output tokens 6.2x cheaper ($4.05 vs $25.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.76 against $1.37).

Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.5 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $0.975 and $4.05. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Opus 4.5 costs $1.37 and Inkling $0.76.

Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?

Inkling, with 524K tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 4.5 vs Inkling comparison based on?

71 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Opus 4.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Inkling's on 6. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling: which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Math

Knowledge

Web design

General

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

Compare next