o4 Mini vs Inkling
Inkling leads o4 Mini on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 25.0 to 16.7, at about the same output price ($4.05 vs $4.40 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 62 benchmarks have a result for both.
o4 Mini or Inkling: which to pick
Only Inkling has a coding score, 31.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; o4 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick o4 Mini for work measured by WeirdML or MMMU Pro (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 62
- o4 Mini only
- 36
- Inkling only
- 40
- 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
No call
Only Inkling has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 25.0 against 16.7.
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 74.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only o4 Mini has a AIME result, 83.7%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Inkling
Inkling leads, 86.3% against 80.6%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Inkling
Inkling leads, 1224 against 985.
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
o4 Mini $0.0033, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Inkling has the number, $0.76.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- o4 Mini not benchmarked, Inkling 31.5 from 6 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Web design, 27.4 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: 3D: o4 Mini 854 against Inkling 1160, 38.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- o4 Mini $4.40 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 1.1x apart.
- Context window
- o4 Mini 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.
| Category | o4 Mini | Bars | Inkling | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 10 | ||
| Math | 1 | 3 | 1 tie | |
| Knowledge | 1 | 10 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 6 | ||
| General | 1 | 21 | ||
| All shared boards | 6 | 55 | 1 tie |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index13
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 72.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 64.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | 33.9% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1414 | Only Inkling measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.1 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.2% | 85.5% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 19.2% | Only Inkling measured |
| 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) | 85.9% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 47.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 15.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| GSO-Bench | 3.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| WeirdML | 52.6% | 32.3% | o4 Mini |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 946.0 | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1368 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1367 | 1465 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1404 | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling measured |
| SciCode | 10.8% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 16.7 | 25.0 | Inkling |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.5 | 148.4 | Inkling |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 22.5 | Only Inkling measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1196 | Only Inkling 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 | 55.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| METR time horizons | 63.9% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index210
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 74.5% | 87.1% | Inkling |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.7% | 78.5% | o4 Mini |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 78.4% | 87.2% | Inkling |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 16.5% | 31.9% | Inkling |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 79.6% | 88.3% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI | 58.7% | 79.5% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 6.1% | 36.5% | Inkling |
| SimpleBench | 38.7% | 50.0% | Inkling |
| Chess puzzles | 22.0% | 21.0% | o4 Mini |
| Mystery game puzzles | 5.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| VPCT | 57.5% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1351 | 1451 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1343 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1366 | 1448 | Inkling |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1197 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1234 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 83.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 94.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 93.4% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| AA Math Index | 90.7 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 90.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 81.7% | 88.9% | Inkling |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 36.1% | 33.3% | o4 Mini |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 4.9% | 4.9% | Tie |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| MATH level 5 | 97.8% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1389 | 1479 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1379 | 1460 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index110
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.6% | 86.3% | Inkling |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 79.2% | 83.0% | Inkling |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 59.0% | 68.6% | Inkling |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.8% | 75.3% | Inkling |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.8% | 64.0% | o4 Mini |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 96.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 33.8% | 41.2% | Inkling |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.6% | 40.3% | Inkling |
| GeoBench | 64.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1354 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1361 | 1447 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1350 | 1448 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1325 | 1438 | Inkling |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 28.1% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 985 | 1224 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: UI components | 983 | 1198 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1003 | 1165 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: data viz | 991 | 1156 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: 3D | 854 | 1160 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 976 | 1205 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1108 | Only Inkling measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1089 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Inkling measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index121
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | 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) | 41.1% | 36.5% | o4 Mini |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 69.1% | 85.4% | Inkling |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| IFBench | 68.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 61.0% | 77.3% | Inkling |
| DTBench | 77.6% | 87.5% | Inkling |
| LMCA | 26.5% | 37.6% | Inkling |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 77.8% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 75.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text | 1353 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1320 | 1425 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1294 | 1390 | Inkling |
| LMArena Vision | 1194 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1367 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | 1434 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1354 | 1493 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: German | 1336 | 1445 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1308 | 1429 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1312 | 1403 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: French | 1364 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1346 | 1449 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1334 | 1430 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1358 | 1450 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1350 | 1437 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1315 | 1435 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1316 | 1404 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1308 | 1394 | Inkling |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1200 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1218 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1197 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1199 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1204 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1218 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1166 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | 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
Inkling costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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.
| Specification | OpenAI o4 Mini | Thinking Machines Inkling |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | April 16, 2025 | July 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 200K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.10 | $0.975 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.40 | $4.05 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 31.5 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 6 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.76 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is o4 Mini better than Inkling for coding?
Only Inkling has a coding score, 31.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; o4 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick o4 Mini for work measured by WeirdML or MMMU Pro (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, o4 Mini or Inkling?
o4 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $0.975 and $4.05. Cost per solved task is known for Inkling only.
Which has the bigger context window, o4 Mini or Inkling?
Inkling, with 524K tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the o4 Mini vs Inkling comparison based on?
62 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. o4 Mini's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Inkling's on 6. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.