Model comparison
Claude Opus 4.5 vs Inkling
Head-to-head evidence from 10 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.5 #19; Inkling #17
BenchAlign evidence: Claude Opus 4.5 supported; Inkling not scored. Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.5 and Inkling share 10 comparable benchmark results. 6 of 8 categories are comparable. 50 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.5; 6 to Inkling.
Updated July 15, 2026- Shared results
- 10
- Claude Opus 4.5 only
- 50
- Inkling only
- 6
- Comparable categories
- 6 / 8
Pick Claude Opus 4.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Inkling only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 10 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 6 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Claude Opus 4.5 has the cleaner provisional overall profile here, landing at 71 versus 69. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.
Claude Opus 4.5's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 58.5 against 51.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is IFBench, 58% to 79.8%. Inkling does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Claude Opus 4.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.87 input / $4.68 output per 1M tokens for Inkling. That is roughly 5.3x on output cost alone. Inkling is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.5 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Inkling gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude Opus 4.5.
Category breakdown
Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.
| Category | Claude Opus 4.5 | Δ | Inkling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math | Claude Opus 4.557.5 | Margin→ 39.6 | Inkling97.1 |
| Inst. Following | Claude Opus 4.569.5 | Margin→ 10.3 | Inkling79.8 |
| Agentic | Claude Opus 4.562.6 | Margin→ 6.8 | Inkling69.4 |
| Knowledge | Claude Opus 4.558.5 | Margin← 6.8 | Inkling51.7 |
| Multimodal | Claude Opus 4.569.9 | Margin→ 6.6 | Inkling76.5 |
| Coding | Claude Opus 4.571.7 | Margin← 3.1 | Inkling68.6 |
| Reasoning | Claude Opus 4.564.4 | MarginNo overlap | InklingNot measured |
| Multilingual | Claude Opus 4.585.7 | MarginNo overlap | InklingNot measured |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
IFBench
Inst. FollowingA 58%B 79.8%Winner: InklingΔ 21.8IFBench: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 58%; Inkling scored 79.8%. Inkling wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
HLE
KnowledgeA 30.8%B 46%Winner: InklingΔ 15.2HLE: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 30.8%; Inkling scored 46%. Inkling wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
CharXiv
MultimodalA 68.5%B 82%Winner: InklingΔ 13.5CharXiv: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 68.5%; Inkling scored 82%. Inkling wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
Terminal-Bench 2.0
AgenticA 59.3%B 63.8%Winner: InklingΔ 4.5Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 59.3%; Inkling scored 63.8%. Inkling wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
SWE-bench Verified
CodingA 80.9%B 77.6%Winner: Claude Opus 4.5Δ 3.3SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.5 scored 80.9%; Inkling scored 77.6%. Claude Opus 4.5 wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Claude Opus 4.5$5 input / $25 output | Inkling$1.87 input / $4.68 output | Inkling has the lower combined listed price. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Claude Opus 4.546 tok/s | InklingNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Claude Opus 4.51.01 s | InklingNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Claude Opus 4.5200K | Inkling1M | Inkling lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
AgenticInkling wins18 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 59.3% | 63.8% | Inkling leads |
| OSWorld-VerifiedSource | 66.3% | — | Not comparable |
| OSWorldSource | 66.3% | — | Not comparable |
| Claw-EvalSource | 59.6% | — | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | 52.3% | — | Not comparable |
| τ³-bench resultsSource | 70.2% | — | Not comparable |
| VITA-BenchSource | 23.3% | — | Not comparable |
| DeepPlanningSource | 26.4% | — | Not comparable |
| ToolathlonSource | 43.5% | — | Not comparable |
| MCP AtlasSource | 42.3% | 74.1% | Inkling leads |
| MCP-TasksSource | 71.8% | — | Not comparable |
| WideResearchSource | 76.4% | — | Not comparable |
| CyberGymSource | 50.6% | — | Not comparable |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | 86.3% | — | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | 64.23% | — | Not comparable |
| JobBenchSource | 32.3% | — | Not comparable |
| BrowseCompSource | — | 77.1% | Not comparable |
| Design Arena Agentic Web DevSource | — | 1258 | Not comparable |
CodingClaude Opus 4.5 wins8 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 80.9% | 77.6% | Claude Opus 4.5 leads |
| LiveCodeBench v6Source | 84.8% | — | Not comparable |
| SWE-bench ProSource | 57.1% | 54.3% | Claude Opus 4.5 leads |
| SWE MultilingualSource | 77.5% | — | Not comparable |
| NL2RepoSource | 43.2% | — | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench HardSource | 40.9% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-SciCodeSource | 47.0% | — | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 63.8% | Not comparable |
Reasoning4 benchmarks
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.5 wins15 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQASource | 87% | 87.9% | Inkling leads |
| SuperGPQASource | 70.6% | — | Not comparable |
| MMLU-ProSource | 89.5% | — | Not comparable |
| MMLU-ReduxSource | 96.6% | — | Not comparable |
| C-EvalSource | 92.2% | — | Not comparable |
| HLESource | 30.8% | 46% | Inkling leads |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | 34.7% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | 81.0% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-HLESource | 12.9% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | -3.9% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | 40.7% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | 75.4% | — | Not comparable |
| AA MMLU-ProSource | 88.9% | — | Not comparable |
| GPQA-DSource | — | 87.9% | Not comparable |
| HLE w/o toolsSource | — | 30% | Not comparable |
MathInkling wins7 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME26Source | 95.1% | 97.1% | Inkling leads |
| HMMT Feb 2025Source | 92.9% | — | Not comparable |
| HMMT Nov 2025Source | 93.3% | — | Not comparable |
| HMMT Feb 2026Source | 85.3% | — | Not comparable |
| MMAnswerBenchSource | 84.0% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source | 20.690% | — | Not comparable |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source | 4.167% | — | Not comparable |
Multilingual2 benchmarks
MultimodalInkling wins9 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.5 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMMU-ProSource | 70.6% | 73.5% | Inkling leads |
| MathVisionSource | 74.3% | — | Not comparable |
| CharXivSource | 68.5% | 82% | Inkling leads |
| VideoMMMUSource | 84.4% | — | Not comparable |
| ScreenSpot ProSource | 45.7% | — | Not comparable |
| V*Source | 67.0% | — | Not comparable |
| AA-MMMU-ProSource | 71.2% | — | Not comparable |
| Design Arena WebsiteSource | 1281 | — | Not comparable |
| CharXiv w/o toolsSource | — | 78.1% | Not comparable |
Frequently Asked Questions (7)
Which is better, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Claude Opus 4.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 71 to 69. The biggest single separator in this matchup is IFBench, where the scores are 58% and 79.8%.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 58.5 versus 51.7. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Claude Opus 4.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 71.7 versus 68.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Inkling has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.1 versus 57.5. Inside this category, AIME26 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Inkling has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 versus 62.6. Inside this category, MCP Atlas is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Inkling has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 76.5 versus 69.9. Inside this category, CharXiv is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for instruction following, Claude Opus 4.5 or Inkling?
Inkling has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 69.5. Inside this category, IFBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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