o4 Mini vs Inkling Small
Updated October 21, 2026. 59 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick o4 Mini for coding: it scores 68.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.9 for Inkling Small.
Pick Inkling Small when output tokens cost 3.7x less, or when the context window is larger, 524K against 200K tokens.
- Shared results
- 59
- o4 Mini only
- 35
- Inkling Small only
- 25
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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, four public coding benchmarks
o4 Mini
o4 Mini scores 68.6 against 29.9.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 25.7 against 16.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a AA Agentic Index result, 23.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling Small
Inkling Small leads, 83.6% 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 Small
Inkling Small leads, 85.6% against 80.6%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only o4 Mini has a Design Arena: websites result, 985.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling Small has a Vals Index result, 27.6%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling Small
Inkling Small takes 524K tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Inkling Small
o4 Mini $0.0033, Inkling Small $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Inkling Small has the number, $0.16.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- o4 Mini 68.6 from 2 benchmarks, Inkling Small 29.9 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 13.2 points apart on average over 12 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI-2: o4 Mini 6.1% against Inkling Small 40.1%, 34.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- o4 Mini $4.40 against Inkling Small $1.20 per million output tokens, 3.7x apart.
- Context window
- o4 Mini takes 200K tokens, Inkling Small 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 Small | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 12 | ||
| Math | 0 | 5 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 9 | ||
| General | 1 | 25 | ||
| All shared boards | 3 | 56 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | 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 |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1409 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.9 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.2% | 85.9% | Inkling Small |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.2% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 13.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 9.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 55.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.1% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.9% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 15.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| GSO-Bench | 3.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| WeirdML | 52.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1368 | 1450 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1367 | 1447 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1399 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1398 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1410 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 16.7 | 25.7 | Inkling Small |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.5 | 150.3 | Inkling Small |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 23.5 | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 41.3% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.5% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 55.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| METR time horizons | 63.9% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index012
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 74.5% | 83.6% | Inkling Small |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 78.4% | 89.5% | Inkling Small |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 16.5% | 33.3% | Inkling Small |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 79.6% | 88.5% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI | 58.7% | 84.0% | Inkling Small |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 6.1% | 40.1% | Inkling Small |
| SimpleBench | 38.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Chess puzzles | 22.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 5.0% | 6.0% | Inkling Small |
| VPCT | 57.5% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1351 | 1423 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1343 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1366 | 1429 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1197 | 1251 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1234 | 1257 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | 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% | 90.0% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 36.1% | 46.3% | Inkling Small |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 4.9% | 17.1% | Inkling Small |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 6.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| MATH level 5 | 97.8% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1389 | 1459 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1379 | 1441 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index29
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 80.6% | 85.6% | Inkling Small |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 79.2% | 83.0% | Inkling Small |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 59.0% | 69.6% | Inkling Small |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.8% | 75.5% | Inkling Small |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.8% | 62.3% | o4 Mini |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 96.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 33.8% | 37.9% | Inkling Small |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.6% | 19.1% | o4 Mini |
| GeoBench | 64.0% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1354 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1361 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1350 | 1415 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1325 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 985 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 983 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1004 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 990 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 854 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 977 | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index125
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling Small | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 27.6% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 41.1% | 32.7% | o4 Mini |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 69.1% | 84.1% | Inkling Small |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling Small measured |
| IFBench | 68.7% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 61.0% | 75.7% | Inkling Small |
| DTBench | 77.6% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMCA | 26.5% | Not measured | Only o4 Mini measured |
| 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 | 1413 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1320 | 1399 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1294 | 1334 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision | 1194 | 1237 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: English | 1367 | 1421 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1337 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1354 | 1464 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: German | 1336 | 1408 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1308 | 1401 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1312 | 1367 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: French | 1364 | 1435 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1346 | 1422 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1334 | 1394 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1358 | 1428 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1350 | 1416 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1315 | 1402 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1316 | 1357 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1308 | 1352 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1200 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1218 | 1292 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1197 | 1243 | Inkling Small |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1199 | 1207 | Inkling Small |
| 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 | 1205 | Inkling Small |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | o4 Mini | Inkling 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 Small costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Inkling Small costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Inkling 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 o4 Mini | Thinking Machines Inkling Small |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | April 16, 2025 | July 30, 2026 |
| Context window | 200K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.10 | $0.45 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.40 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 68.6 | 29.9 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.16 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is o4 Mini better than Inkling Small for coding?
Pick o4 Mini for coding: it scores 68.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 29.9 for Inkling Small. Pick Inkling Small when output tokens cost 3.7x less, or when the context window is larger, 524K against 200K tokens.
Which is cheaper, o4 Mini or Inkling Small?
o4 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Inkling Small costs $0.45 and $1.20. Cost per solved task is known for Inkling Small only.
Which has the bigger context window, o4 Mini or Inkling Small?
Inkling Small, with 524K tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the o4 Mini vs Inkling Small comparison based on?
59 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. o4 Mini's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Inkling Small's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.