GPT-5.6 Terra vs Inkling 2 Small
GPT-5.6 Terra leads Inkling 2 Small on coding, 63.5 to 48.9 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Inkling 2 Small costs 12.0x less per output token ($1.00 vs $12.00 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 43 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 43 shared, 2 tied
GPT-5.6 Terra or Inkling 2 Small: which to pick
Pick GPT-5.6 Terra for coding: it scores 63.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 48.9 for Inkling 2 Small.
Pick Inkling 2 Small for output tokens 12.0x cheaper ($1.00 vs $12.00 per million) and work measured by LMArena WebDev or Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI), where it leads.
Model AGPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI63.5/1006 independent benchmarks$0.42 per solved taskModel BInkling 2 SmallThinking Machines48.9/1003 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 43
- GPT-5.6 Terra only
- 99
- Inkling 2 Small only
- 8
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra scores 63.5 against 48.9.
6 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 32.3 against 30.6.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a AA Agentic Index result, 43.2.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a GPQA Diamond result, 90.9%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a MMLU Pro result, 86.7%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a Design Arena: websites result, 1260.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling 2 Small has a Vals Index result, 56.1%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M tokens against 1.05M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling 2 Small
GPT-5.6 Terra $0.0080, Inkling 2 Small $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has the number, $0.42.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-5.6 Terra 63.5 from 6 benchmarks, Inkling 2 Small 48.9 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 8.5 points apart on average over 13 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run): GPT-5.6 Terra 35.4% against Inkling 2 Small 13.1%, 22.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-5.6 Terra $12.00 against Inkling 2 Small $1.00 per million output tokens, 12.0x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M 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 | GPT-5.6 Terra | Bars | Inkling 2 Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 5 | 7 | 1 tie | |
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 3 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 6 | 1 | 1 tie | |
| Knowledge | 2 | 1 | ||
| General | 10 | 3 | ||
| All shared boards | 27 | 14 | 2 ties |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index57
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 84.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1520 | 1647 | Inkling 2 Small |
| AA Coding Index | 76.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 22.7% | 12.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 74.6% | 81.5% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 47.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.5% | 0.5% | Tie |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 77.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 43.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 14.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 58.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 72.1% | 72.7% | Inkling 2 Small |
| SciCode | 55.0% | 52.3% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 62.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | 35.4% | 13.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | 23.9% | 25.4% | Inkling 2 Small |
| FrontierCode | 41.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| WeirdML | 78.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MirrorCode | 41.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1951.4 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1485 | 1455 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1481 | 1443 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1511 | 1660 | Inkling 2 Small |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1523 | 1661 | Inkling 2 Small |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1539 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SciCode | 10.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | 92.4% | 97.7% | Inkling 2 Small |
| GameBench 2 | 53.5 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 78.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 20.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 21.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CursorBench 4.0 | 41.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 32.3 | 30.6 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 160.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index32
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 43.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1095 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1036 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1097 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1057 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1027 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 999 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1095 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 999 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench research | 79.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench browser | 70.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 25.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 9.5% | 1.9% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 54.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 30.0% | 38.9% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 41.4% | 46.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 21.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 66.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.0% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 10.0% | 2.9% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 32.7% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 86.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| APEX-Agents | 58.2% | 46.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| BALROG | 53.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $7,343 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MCP Atlas | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index61
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 90.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.2% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 86.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.9% | 44.1% | Inkling 2 Small |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 28.8% | 28.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | 50.5% | 35.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ARC-AGI | 96.5% | 96.5% | Tie |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 83.9% | 81.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| SimpleBench | 48.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Chess puzzles | 47.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 35.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1470 | 1421 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1495 | 1478 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1465 | 1424 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1291 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1308 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 51.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 70.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ProofBench | 74.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1462 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1476 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MathArena | Not measured | 42.4% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 85.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 65.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 76.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 43.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| AA-Omniscience | -9.3 | 16.1 | Inkling 2 Small |
| SimpleQA Verified | 43.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1453 | 1409 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1430 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1461 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1446 | 1415 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 61.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1260 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1250 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1220 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1236 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1109 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1229 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1207 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1171 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench design | 70.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index103
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Inkling 2 Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 56.1% | Only Inkling 2 Small measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 62.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 87.0% | 88.6% | Inkling 2 Small |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 82.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 65.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| IFBench | 71.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 83.0% | 83.3% | Inkling 2 Small |
| GDPval-AA | 1461 | 1630 | Inkling 2 Small |
| DTBench | 93.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMCA | 54.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 83.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Furniture assembly | 54.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text | 1449 | 1403 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1455 | 1408 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1414 | 1348 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision | 1269 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1448 | 1418 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1442 | 1390 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1513 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1461 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1445 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1423 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1470 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1449 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1453 | 1377 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1443 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1455 | 1408 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1454 | 1403 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1431 | 1381 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1418 | 1359 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1268 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1326 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1277 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1241 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1245 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Document | 1468 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1220 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | 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
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.0080Fits in one request
Inkling 2 Small$0.0008Fits in one request
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.136Fits in one request
Inkling 2 Small$0.018Fits in one request
Inkling 2 Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.520Fits in one request
Inkling 2 Small$0.070Fits in one request
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 | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra | Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | July 9, 2026 | November 9, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $12.00 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 63.5 | 48.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.42 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-5.6 Terra better than Inkling 2 Small for coding?
Pick GPT-5.6 Terra for coding: it scores 63.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 48.9 for Inkling 2 Small. Pick Inkling 2 Small for output tokens 12.0x cheaper ($1.00 vs $12.00 per million) and work measured by LMArena WebDev or Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Terra or Inkling 2 Small?
GPT-5.6 Terra costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $12.00 per million output tokens; Inkling 2 Small costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-5.6 Terra only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5.6 Terra or Inkling 2 Small?
GPT-5.6 Terra, with 1.05M tokens against 1.05M.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-5.6 Terra vs Inkling 2 Small comparison based on?
43 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. GPT-5.6 Terra's coding index rests on 6 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.